John Updike's Marching Through A Novel

John Updike’s Marching Through a Novel is a poem that illustrates how characters truly come alive to their authors. Throughout the poem, Updike discusses in figurative terms how characters are developed. He does this effectively through the use of strong metaphors and illustrative word choice. The author opens the piece by stating that “each morning my characters greet me with misty faces”. Characters are the first thought in the author's mind when he wakes up. They “greet” him. Although, inferences drawn from the word “misty” lead the reader to picture that the character’s faces are blurry or not fully complete. Secondly, the characters are immediately ready to “muster another day’s progress”. Such “progress” is not desired by the characters