Babbitt

The book under analysis herein is Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt. The copy I am using in this research is published by Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., New York, 1950. The original version was published in 1922, but there is no information in this book regarding what printing or edition it may be. This edition encompasses thirty four chapters which span 401 pages in length as they are printed here. One interesting note is that the novel is dedicated to Edith Wharton.

The author of the work, Sinclair Lewis, was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, and holds the distinction of being the first American ever to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Lewis was born in the late 19th century and lived until the middle of the 20th century so he witnessed many social transformations, including electricity, the automobile and the rise of industrialism and urban centers. His college years were spent at Yale and he worked early in his writing career as a newspaper journalist and editor. His early works like The Job: An American Novel were characteristic of the satire and realism that would come to be trademarks of his mature style. Lewis would go on to write novels that satirized with little mercy the small rural town (Main Street), the 9-to-5 businessman (Babbitt) and those who tried to prevent scientific truth from emerging (Arrowsmith). Elmer Gantry and Dodsworth were also literary successes and each was made into a Hollywood motion picture.

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titutes, for joy and passion and wisdom" (Lewis 95). However, for all his satire of Babbitt, Lewis, in keeping with his own character, seems somewhat more sympathetic for George than he does for the society in which he exists. For Babbitt is a social satire on the dehumanizing qualities of life in a mechanized, godless, material world. Babbitt embodies such dehumanization because he thoughts, actions and feelings are as mechanized and imposed as the molds on an assembly line, "His speech, compounded on the cliches and prejudices of his group, is not the expression of a sentient, rationale human being. His symbols of truth and beauty are the mechanical devices which surround him, even though he understands nothing of their workings. Success for him means conformity to the pattern of living delineated by the one true American art, advertising" (Dooley 83-84). There are many other examples in the novel to support the above contentions about the themes of Lewis and the character of George Babbitt. Yet, as much as we can feel Lewis' disdain for those who do not have the courage to act on their own feelings and formulate their own thoughts, he does seem to portray Babbitt as a man who is at least aware of his dilemma and l

Category: Literature - B