Vilnius pedagogical university faculty of foreign languages department of english philology

best thing in His Creation. If that’s the case, who are this time and tide that are so almighty superior to us?” (The Centaur, p. 60)
Peter’s determination to overcome time’s tyranny is even stronger than his father’s.
Vargo presupposes that his desire to become an artist embraces:
the wish to answer in a human way the inconceivable elements of heaven, to stop time and give immortality to the fleeting moment. Art is the ritual by which Peter will achieve the eternal mythical present.” (Rainstorms and Fire, p. 93)

Consequently, both Caldwell and Peter search for possibilities to escape death; and myth serves as a means to succeed. The final and most significant episode is Caldwell’s acceptance of life in the final chapter. As he walks from his house to the car, he struggles with his desire for death and his feel for life. First, the white fields covered with snow make him think about the disharmony between earth and heaven: “White, she was white, death’s own colour, sum of the spectrum, wherever the centaur’s eye searched.[…] There was no help.” (The Centaur, pp. 265-266) And: “Sky, emasculate, had flung himself far off raging in pain and left his progeny to parch upon a white waste that stretched its arms from sunrise to sunset.” (The Centaur, p. 266)

Yet even through the deathly whiteness of winter signs of hope break out. The incipient buds upon the trees and bushes show promise of the future. Seeing these signs Caldwell gets the feeling of hope and harmony. He comes to the conclusion that the desired freedom can be reached through giving of his life to others. At this point, as Vargo suggests, “a mood of religious celebration overwhelms him.” (The Centaur, p. 99) He conceives, that only goodness lives, and he is capable of giving that goodness to other people despite the fact that they may not appreciate or even notice it. Finally, Caldwell finds the key to the enigma tormenting him all his life – he will continue to live; death is not ready to take him.
To sum up, all the elements of visibilia and invisibilia mentioned above obtain additional meaning and significance, and penetrate into a higher level of sacred being. Moreover, Caldwell and Peter are brought into contact with God not in a direct fashion - through the Church, but namely through these elements, “humanly attainable and humanly transcendent which are contained in God’s creation” (Rainstorms and Fire, p. 100). In other words, the father and the son are able to face the inconceivable because they are sensitive to the universe. The following quotation vividly explains the inconceivable, or God, as perceived by Caldwell and Peter:
In The Centaur, this sign value of the world is implicit, but God is still vague, bloodless Being, not much more specified than the Something Beyond after which rabbit runs. The name of the Lord occurs repeatedly in conversational clichés, spontaneous ejaculations, or brief prayers of petition. On various occasions, Caldwell expresses a basic trust in God’s providence. But the God of Caldwell and Peter is at its best not vividly conceived, personal God. (Rainstorms and Fire, p.102)

This is the way Updike expresses religious reality in the twentieth century. In the time of atheism and religious fanaticism there are people (Updike’s characters Caldwell and Peter) who believe in their personal God and the sacrality of the universe, and whose motto is, perhaps, the most humane of all: “goodness lives”.

4. 
   PEDAGOGICAL FUNCTION OF MYTH
   

In The Centaur the pedagogical function of myth emphasizes Caldwell’s inner strength and spiritual integrity. Despite his poverty and numerous misfortunes he does not lose his honour and values. In other words, he is an example of how everyone should behave to get the right to be called a man. Then, the myth helps the reader to understand that the journey from life to death must have a purpose. However, the pedagogical function of myth may be differently perceived by different readers due to the fact that any book invokes distinct thoughts, emotions and reactions in every separate individual. It pertains to a reader’s inner world, background and culture how he or she understands the pedagogical value of the myth of Chiron employed in The Centaur. This paper presents the aspects of the pedagogical function mentioned above; however, there might appear other interpretations.
In order to clearly realize the level of the pedagogical function in The Centaur, it is necessary to discuss its protagonist’s life condition. So, from the very beginning of the novel it is clear that George Caldwell is a poor man. In the text there occur numerous proofs of this fact: the Caldwells “had been too poor to afford a baby carriage”, (The Centaur, p. 15). They were “poor and therefore slow to call a doctor.” (The Centaur, p. 116) George’s “father had been the poor minister of a poor church”, (The Centaur, p. 22). Caldwell was “a poor dresser, his clothes were so nakedly shabby”, (The Centaur, p. 33). He usually wore “his overcoat, a tattered checkered cast-off with mismatching buttons, which he had rescued from a church sale, though it was too small and barely reached his knees. On his head he wore a hideous blue knitted cap that he had plucked out a trash barrel at school.” (The Centaur, p. 61)
Caldwell’s childhood was very difficult, his father died at the age of forty-nine, leaving his family “a Bible and a deskful of debts” (The Centaur, p. 83), so the boy had to work in order to survive. George says: “I never had time to eat either. Get your carcass away