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Introduction John Updike, generally acknowledged as one of the most famous contemporary American writers, was born in Pennsylvania on March 18th1932. He graduated from Harvard University majoring in English and later went to the Oxford University for further study. From 1955 to 1957, he worked as a New Yorker Magazine editor. After that, he went back to his hometown and published his most famous novels, The Rabbit series. It describes how a teenage whose nickname is Rabbit becomes an ordinary and conservative richer. Updike had written about 50 books in all, which involving in all aspects of American life after the second world war, such as sex, religion and art. This is also the basic elements of Terrorist. Terrorist is a masterpiece following the Rabbit series which deeply reflect the September 11th event. Eighteen-year-old Ahmad is an American senior school student with African descent who owns handsome appearance, which derives from his Irish mother and his African father. However, the single-parent upbringing makes him lonely. His father Left home when he was 3 years old, leaving his mother and him alone. He is brought up by his mother, he missed his father so much.
He became a Muslim believer at the age of 11.It is not because he truly believes in Muslim. After graduation, he becomes desperate for life and doesn’t want to go to college. He gives up sweet bourgeois American dream and becomes a truck driver willingly. One day, in a wired stationery store, he received an ultimate and secret command, that is to make a terrorist attack which is no inferior to the September 11th terrorist attack. But the ending is happy. He ultimately gives up being a terrorist. The story’s characters and their motivation are quickly and skillfully established. The events occur in a six-month period, between April and September 2004, ending right after the third anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Most of the action takes place in New Jersey, with two crucial side trips to Washington, D.C., at the headquarters of the Secretary of Homeland Security. Among Updike’s many exceptional gifts is his ability to establish for the reader a sense of place, to summon up a lived-in, astutely observed, humanly imprinted world even in a fast paced thriller(George W. Hunt:2006). In recent years, domestic and overseas studies on this novel mainly concentrated on religious and racial conflicts. Some foreign scholars studied the protagonist's psychological change course, such as George W. Hunt, he says in his novel: “Among Updike’s many exceptional gifts is his ability to establish for the reader a sense of place, to summon up a lived-in, astutely observed, humanly imprinted world even in a fastpaced thriller. When Henry James defined the artist as “one on whom nothing is lost,” he must have had Updike proleptically in mind.”(24)Some of researches explored the cultural conflicts in this novel from a critical point of view, such as Peterc. Herman; some scholars made the comparison with the similar works in the way of history depiction like Bob.Batchelor. On the contrary, the domestic study is much meticulous than the overseas researchers, it can be pided into three parts, first is the research from the view of literature, for example, Wang Weiqian (2013), and Luo xiaoyun said in her novel: “9 /11
Terrorist Attack forced many American novelists to turn from postmodern experiment to neo-realist writing．In his new novel Terrorist Updike focuses on cultural conflicts, hegemonic discourse ， religion distributes ， racial differences and terrorism, demonstrating major characteristics of the post- 9 /11 literature.”(2013)Second, there are many researchers concerned about the protagonist's psychological changes such as Chen Fan,(2015) Third is the exploration about the relationship between religion and terrorism, such as Duan Lifang. She mentioned in her novel: “Although Terrorist seems to be a story about how a young teenager steps on a road to carry out a terrorist mission guided by Islamic religion, it has no hostile intention towards the Islam religion. From a sympathized viewpoint out of a terrorist, Updike reveals in the story what compel him to his mission is not simply out of his religion, nor the conspiracy of his imam.”(2013)But there were few people researched the novel from the perspective of initiation novel. Therefore, this paper will study the American social environment, religious conflicts and collisions, how the impulses of youth and redemption were achieved by a boy from the perspective of initiation story, and hope to explore how the initiation story is constructed in this book.