Character of George Babbitt in Babbitt

The character of George Babbitt in the novel Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis is the author's image of the middle-American businessman of the age, a man constantly struggling with his identity in society and always eager to live up to the image he believes society sees as most superior. This image is based on the developing consumer culture, and Babbitt is a man who seeks to buy all the goods possible and to display them as trophies in his home in order to show the world that he is a success. What Babbitt wants is to be accepted in the terms he believes society has set, in terms of business ability, the accumulation of money, the right social image, and certain core American values. In truth, Babbitt never achieves the happiness and satisfaction he desires, and instead is constantly disappointed in the things he buys to make himself happy. His business dealings are part of his efforts to create an image and to live that image, and here again he is constantly disappointed that he never achieves the stature he seeks. He places a high value on a certain image without understanding that it is more illusion than reality.

Babbitt's home and office are both reflections of myself, but he fails to see how empty each may be. His home has been decked out with the best furniture and the latest gadgets, furnished with "the best of taste, the best of inexpensive rugs, a simple and laudable architecture, and the latest conveniences" (14). Only one thing is found to be wrong with the imag

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a good American with a normal life, though as a family man he is not very assiduous: Though he saw them twice daily, though he knew and amply discussed every detail of their expenditures, yet for weeks together Babbitt was no more conscious of his children than of the buttons on his coat-sleeve (214). Babbitt gives much more attention to his office, seeing it as a reflection of his own social position. He likes to admire the office as he looks down from his cage in the main room, overlooking the salesmen and others who make the real estate business work: "Normally he admired the office, with a pleased surprise that he should have created this lovely thing. . . " (32). His sense of pride extends to the machines he purchases for the office as well, and it is how expensive these are that is most pleasing to him: He looked down at the relentless stretch of tiled floor at the water-cooler, and assured himself that no tenant of the Reeves building had a more expensive one, but he could not recapture the feeling of social superiority it had given him" (32). The most powerful feeling Babbitt gets comes when he spends money on something like this watercooler, though it is a feeling that dissipates over time so that he must always s

Category: Literature - C