The Christian Roommates by John Updike

The Christian Roommates by John Updike
first appeared in the April 1964 issue of the New Yorker magazine and has been collected in John Updike: The Early Stories and anthologized in American Short Story Masterpieces. In a Paris Review interview, Updike briefly describes how his Harvard experience changed him his freshman year and the ambivalence and awareness he felt developing there.

The story is about several roommates on a first year residence hall, but focuses on the experience of two distinct roommates. As the Midwestern, small-town protagonist, Orson Ziegler describes the situation, "He envied all the roommates, whatever the bond between them - geography, race, ambition, physical size - for between himself and [his roommate] Hub Palamountain he could see no link except forced cohabitation." His roommate's different habits (yoga, vegetarianism, being a conscientious objector to the Korean war, etc.) nearly drive Orson to a nervous breakdown. Eventually, they get into a physical fight in their room (instigated by Orson) in front of their fellow residents (where Hub easily dominates Orson); they quit talking to each other for a couple days; and then they "finished out the year sitting side by side at their desks as amiably as two cramped passengers who have endured a long bus trip together." Orson is particularly bothered that his roommate seems to hold him to a higher standard than the other guys on the floor and struggles with encountering someone who shares his faith in name and general beliefs but who varies widely in practice.

Discussion Questions:

1. First thoughts? General Impressions? How does the style (voice, pov, details revealed, etc.) affect your reading of this story?

2. This story is set in Harvard in the early 1950s. What first year experiences do the characters have that our students continue to have today? Are there any first year experiences the characters have that our students don't?

3. Considering Orson's friction-filled relationship with Hub (and the twist at the end of the story), how do spiritual development theories (Parks, Fowler) and/or cognitive development theories explain Orson's development?

4. In What Matters in College?: Four Critical Years Revisited, Astin (1993) says that "Viewed as a whole, the many empirical findings from this study seem to warrant the following general conclusion:  the student's peer group is the single most important source of influence on growth and development in the undergraduate years (p. 398). How important is Orson's roommate, Hub, on his growth and development? How important are the other guys on the floor?

5. Tinto's Theory of Retention (1975) suggests that a sense of fit with an institution makes it much more likely that a student will stay and graduate and that conversely, a sense of not belonging makes it more likely that a student will drop out or transfer. How does this explain the experience of Young, the black student who lived down the hall from Orson?

Young was a lean, malt-pale colored boy from North Carolina, here on a national scholarship, out of his depth, homesick, and cold. Kern called him Brer Possum. He slept all day and at night sat on his bed playing the mouthpiece of a trumpet to himself. At first, he had played the full horn in the afternoon, flooding the dormitory and its green envelope of trees with golden, tremulous versions of languorous tunes like "Sentimental Journey" and "The Tennessee Waltz." It had been nice. But Young's sense of place - a habit of self-effacement that the shock of Harvard had intensified in him - soon cancelled these harmless performances. He took to hiding from the sun, and at night the furtive spitting sound from across the hall seemed to Orson, as he struggled to sleep, music drowning in shame...

Who eventually, "...slunk in and out of the dorm as if he were diseased and marked for destruction; he became, while still among them, a rumor."

6. In describing Peterson and Fitch, Orson thinks, "physiques aside, it was hard to see what they had in common, or why Harvard had put them together." Is the idea that the department personally selects one's roommate prevalent? How does that idea affect our interactions students?

7. There's no indication of an RA in the story! Why not?