Babbitt
George F. Babbitt is the eponymous hero of Sinclair Lewis's
Babbitt, a novel which was published in 1922 by Harcourt
Brace. Babbitt is a real estate salesman who seems to be very
much a product of his time and culture, interested in material
possessions and concerned with practical education for his
children. Much of the first half of the novel is primarily
satire against various aspects of society: the church, the
men's club, high school and college education, business, etc.
However, in the second half of the novel, Babbitt begins to
realize the sterility of his life and experiments with radical
politics, engages in an affair, and attempts to find solace
in male bonding in the Maine woods. All of this fails, and
at the end of the novel Babbitt is back with his family, hoping
that his son will have a life different from the one he has
had (although it doesn't look like it). "Babbitt" is often
used to define someone who is a middle-class social conformist,
although as you can see from the plot description, this is
based primarily on the first half of the novel. The most recent
book focusing exclusively on Babbitt is Babbitt: An American
Life, by Glen Love (1993). Information about Babbitt can
also be found in The Rise of Sinclair Lewis 1920-1920 by
James Hutchisson (1997).
Main Street
With this novel, Lewis added the words "Main Street"
to Americans' vocabulary to represent the closed culture and
arrogant contentedness of small towns. In Main Street,
Lewis portrays Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, as a typical small
town in the American Middle West, "Its Main Street is
the continuation of Main Streets everywhere." His keen
observations and attention to detail convinced many Americans
that he was writing about their towns. However, this town
does not conform to the friendly, close-knit stereotype. Readers
see Gopher Prairie through the eyes of Carol Kennicott, the
wife of the town doctor who has moved there from St. Paul
after their marriage. She is motivated to bring social reform,
as well as art and literature to the small community, but
is rejected by the townspeople who are satisfied with their
lives and disapprove of any quick changes. In this novel,
Lewis criticizes Americans content with provincial lives.
The most recent book focusing on Main Street is Main
Street: The Revolt of Carol Kennicott, by Martin Bucco
(1993). For information on the creation of the novel, see
also The Rise of Sinclair Lewis 1920-1930 by James
Hutchisson (1997).
Arrowsmith
Martin Arrowsmith is the protagonist of this novel, a doctor
who is torn between helping others and doing serious research.
He moves from being a small town doctor to a public health
inspector to a researcher at a famous New York City clinic.
However, after a disturbing episode while fighting the plague
in the Caribbean, and the death of his beloved wife Leora,
he decides to leave behind civilization and set up a research
outpost in the northern woods. Arrowsmith was made
into a movie in the 1930s with Ronald Colman as Martin and
Helen Hayes as Leora. The novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
in 1926, but Lewis refused it. There have been two collections
of essays focusing on Arrowsmith. One is Twentieth
Century Interpretations of Arrowsmith: A Collection of Critical
Essays, ed. Robert J. Griffin (Prentice-Hall, 1968) and
another is Sinclair Lewis's "Arrowsmith,"
ed. Harold Bloom (Chelsea House, 1988).
Elmer Gantry
Elmer Gantry exposes the corruption of religion in
America. In creating Elmer Gantry, Lewis researched
a variety of religions, spoke in the pulpits of churches,
and attended Sunday School classes. In 1926, he stood in the
pulpit of Burris Jenkins in Linwood Boulevard Christian (Campbellite)
Church and dared God to strike him dead within fifteen minutes
in order to prove His existence. This action created quite
a stir and contributed to the novel becoming a bestseller.
Elmer Gantry is a good natured, lecherous, and not very bright
seminary student who is able to succeed in the ministry because
of his wonderful speaking voice. Although almost all of his
sermons seem to be variations on "love is the morning
and the evening star," he is able to be successful because
he tells people what they want to hear, even though he does
not believe it himself. He starts out as a Baptist minister,
but is forced to leave after an affair with Lulu Baines, the
deacon's daughter, is exposed. He later becomes an evangelist
with Sister Sharon Falconer, an Aimee Semple McPherson type
of preacher. When that affair ends in fire and calamity, he
becomes a Methodist preacher with a self-conferred doctorate.
The novel ends as he prays for the United States to be a "moral
nation" and simultaneously admires the legs of a new
choir singer. This juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane
is a hallmark of this novel. Elmer Gantry was made
into a movie in 1960 with Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry,
Jean Simmons as Sharon Falconer, and Shirley Jones as Lulu
Baines. Both Lancaster and Jones won Academy Awards for their
roles, and Richard Brooks won for Best Adapted Screenplay.
It Can't Happen Here
Responding to fascist events in Europe, including Hitler's
aggressive actions and Franco's murderous acts in Spain, Lewis
warns Americans about the state of their own democracy in
It Can't Happen Here. He identifies the fascism that
had been growing in the United States since World War I. In
the book, he portrays a slow and believable change in American
culture and government; without realizing it, the United States
becomes a totalitarian government. Lewis plays on American
rituals, history, and commonplaces as he focuses on the electoral
process and its corruptions. Doremus Jessup, a sixty-year-old
newspaper editor is the focus of the novel. He stands in for
those vaguely liberal, well-meaning people who believe that
one doesn't need to be too involved in the world. It is only
after Berzelius Windrip becomes president, creates national
concentration camps, and does away with democratic government,
that Doremus becomes politically active. And by then it's
too late. Doremus's son-in-law is killed by the government,
one daughter sacrifices herself to assassinate a political
leader, and the other is nearly raped by a fascist bully.
Doremus is put in a concentration camp, tortured, and eventually
joins the political underground, working for an American government
in exile. The warning is plain. Unless citizens stay educated
and involved, fascism can indeed happen here. Lewis was co-author
of a play version of It Can't Happen Here for the Federal
Theater Project which had over 20 companies performing the
play simultaneously. MGM planned to film the novel, but bowed
to political pressure and aborted the filming. Lewis went
on to play Doremus in summer stock in the late 1930s.
Dodsworth
In Dodsworth, the relationship between Americans and Europeans
is foregrounded by the relationship between husbands and wives.
Sam Dodsworth is an honest, hardworking, talented businessman
with middle-class common sense. He is a fifty-year-old millionaire
with strong beliefs in American values. After raising two
children and helping her husband build his automobile business
for twenty years, Fran Dodsworth insists that he retire so
that they can go on a European tour, which Fran believes will
make them more sophisticated. However, the tour results in
their marriage's destruction. Fran's enthusiasm for the new
and different is not portrayed positively; instead Lewis applauds
Sam's American values. Ironically, Fran's desire for status
leads her to flirt with minor nobility and seek a divorce
from Sam. When the nobleman's mother rejects her as a wife
for her son because she's past child-bearing age, a dejected
Fran seeks out Sam, who has learned to enjoy the slower rhythms
of Europe and the charms of a glamorous divorcee, Edith Cortright.
Sam and Edith also appear as characters in Lewis's last novel
World So Wide. They have become part of the community
of expatriates living in Italy, belonging neither to the land
in which they live nor the land in which they were born. Dodsworth
was adapted into a play by Sidney Howard and later into a
movie. Walter Huston played Sam Dodsworth in both versions.
More recently it has been adapted into a musical.
Visit our page of scholarly
works to see a more detailed listing of
criticism on the works of Sinclair Lewis.
