Babbitt By Sinclair Lewis 18851951

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)

Babbitt
by Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)

Type of Work:

Social commentary

Setting

Zenith, a mythical Midwestern American
city; 1920s

Principal Characters

George F. Babbitt, a middle-aged real
estate agent

Myra, his wife

Ted, their teenage son

Paul Reisling, George's buddy from college

Zilla, Paul's nagging wife

Tanis Judique, George's mistress

Seneca Doane, a radical lawyer and George's
former college friend

Story Overveiw

As another day began in Zenith, sleeping

George Babbitt fought to ignore the morning sounds - the milk truck, the
furnace-man, a dog barking - so that he could cling to the dream he was
having. He had the same dream often. It involved a "fairy child" who discerned"gallant youth" where "others saw but George Babbitt."

But now the day beckoned. George pulled
himself from bed, bathed, shaved, dressed, and then trudged downstairs
to eat. As usual, Babbitt was a grumpy breakfast partner; a foul mood was
expected of a respectable businessman. He grumbled at his nearly adult
children, Verona and Ted, and argued with Myra, his wife. No one in the
house appreciated all he did for them.

Babbitt gulped down his food, "laid unmoving
lips against [Myra's] unblushing cheek," and left for work. Driving toward
his office in down town Zenith, he admired the "bigness" of the city. In
fact, "Babbitt respected bigness in anything: in mountains, jewels, muscles,
wealth, or words... " At the Reeves Building where the Babbitt-Thompson

Realty Company had its offices, he wrote an advertisement designed to entice
buyers to purchase the company's cemetery plots, then phoned his old school
friend Paul Reisling and made arrangements for lunch.

Babbitt always ate in the Zenith Athletic

Club, and today was no exception. He normally sat with "the Roughnecks,"
an intimate group of big businessmen, but today he and Paul sat by themselves.

Paul was more than a little depressed with his shrewish wife Zilla, who
constantly badgered him, embarrassed him in public, and treated him like
a little boy.

While the two friends complained about
their colorless lives, they struck on the idea of getting away to Maine
by themselves that next summer to "just loaf ... and smoke and cuss and
be natural." Babbitt assured Paul that he would arrange everything with
their wives.

The day ended with Babbitt firing a salesman
for being too honest. At home, as usual, Babbitt ate dinner, the kids left
the house, and he plunked himself on the sofa for some lazy reading. But
a seed of dissatisfaction swelled up in him; he vowed that the following
year would bring changes in his life.

The next year began well for Babbitt. Money
poured in as he secretly bought real estate options in a Zenith suburb,

Linton, in anticipation of "the public announcement that the Linton Avenue

Car Line would be extended." Babbitt told Myra about his plan to run up
to Maine with Paul early that spring and bullied Zilla into letting Paul
go, too.

Paul and Babbitt arrived in Maine's north
woods, and both found the climate, surroundings, fishing, hiking and camaraderie,
soothing. Paul started looking at his distant wife with a more forgiving
eye. He began to feel that his marriage would somehow be different - better;
maybe he could "go back and start over again." Babbitt, on the other band,

"sank into irritability," as though he had "uncovered layer upon layer
of hidden weariness." But he still promised himself that his life would
be, from then on, less hurried and hectic.

After his return from Maine, Babbitt was
given the opportunity to address the State Association of Real Estate Boards
at their annual convention. He tried for days to come up with a speech
to express his new-found relaxation; to somehow convince businessmen that
they needed to see life from a deeper perspective. But just before the
convention he trashed his notes, and, instead, parrotted the ideas he knew
his peers wanted to hear. Enthusiastically, he proclaimed the real estate
profession, Zenith, and every good thing about the city, as "God's gift
to earth."

Babbitt's speech was a success. One of

Zenith's newspapers even printed his picture.

After that, things really took off. That

November, Harding won the Presidential election, but in Zenith the mayoral
race was the fight that really counted. Seneca Doane, a radical lawyer
and Babbitt's former college acquaintance - was running on a liberal labor
ticket, while his opponent, Lucas Prout, had the support of "the banks,
the Chamber of Commerce, all the decent newspapers, and George F. Babbitt."

"Prout represented honest industry, Seneca Doane represented whining laziness,"

Babbitt told campaign audiences. In the end, Prout - and by extension,

Babbitt - won.

Soon thereafter, Babbitt was picked to
serve on a church committee formed to "build up the biggest darn Sunday

School in the whole state." There Babbitt met a new business associate,

William Washington Eathorne, president of the First State Bank. Eathorne
symbolized old money, Victorian conservatism, and real power in the Zenith
community. He liked Babbitt's ideas for increasing the size of the Sunday

School by dividing it into four "armies," with military ranks to be awarded
according to how many "souls" each member brought in. Babbit also authored
the idea of hiring a Sunday School press agent.

Next, Babbitt was elected vice-president
of the Zenith chapter of the International Organization of Booster's Clubs.

He was riding high on success, when "all the charm in his life was smothered
by a single event": Paul, his best friend, shot his wife. Babbitt was devastated.

Because Zilla survived the shooting, Paul's sentence was light - only three
years in the State penitentiary. But Babbitt now "faced a world which,
without Paul, was meaningless."

That June, Myra went East to stay with
relatives, and Babbitt was free to do as he pleased. He began to look on
women with a cautious but desiring eye. Once or twice he even dated a manicurist
he knew, but she quashed any thought of an affair, and eventually, Babbitt
gave up the search for his "fairy child," choosing instead to return to

Maine's wilderness. But this too proved disappointing: Babbitt was alone
with no wife to coddle him, no friend to talk with, no children to visit
him.

Returning by train, Babbitt bumped into

Seneca Doane. As they reminisced about old college days, Doane told Babbitt
that "in college you were an unusually liberal, sensitive chap. I can still
recall your saying to me that you were going to be a lawyer, and take the
cases of the poor for nothing, and fight the rich." Babbitt was impressed
by this recollection. By the time he returned to Zenith, he had determined
to be more open; "to give the other fellow a chance, and listen to his
ideas."

One day, Tanis Judique, who rented one
of Babbitt's properties, called on him about some repairs. Their relationship
soon escalated, and Babbitt quickly became absorbed into Tanis' group of
friends (called "the Bunch"), cavorting around town with them and drinking
bootleg whiskey in roadside inns. Still feeling inexplicably unfulfilled,

George secretly continued in these reveries even after Myra's return.

Babbitt's friends at the Athletic Club
became aware of his changed attitudes. When, rather than flat-out condemning
a group of city strikers Babbitt defended them, his colleagues met him
with cold shoulders, glares and looks of disbelief.

One afternoon an associate approached Babbitt
and invited him to join a new organization, the Good Citizen's League.

When Babbitt refused, the man let it be known that he would regret his
decision. Babbitt's business partner warned him, "One little rumor about
you being a crank would do more to ruin this business than all the plots
... these fool storywriters could think up in a month of Sundays." Sure
enough, the real estate company began to lose lucrative opportunities.

From all sides Babbitt was feeling pressure to return to his old, cynical
self. His children were the only ones who approved of his new-found freedom.

Then Myra had a sudden attack of acute
appendicitis. Babbitt felt guilty, then repentant. He decided to mend his
ways. He cut off his affair with Tanis; he quit running with "the Bunch";
and he joined the G.C.L. Once again, George F. Babbitt became the model
citizen - outwardly, at least. Inside, be still refused to conform.

Meanwhile, Ted, who had been away at college
halfheartedly pursuing a career in law Babbitt's dream for his son - eloped
one night with a neighbor's daughter, Eunice Littlefield. The next morning,
when Myra discovered the newlyweds in Ted's bedroom, she became hysterical.

Later that day, the Littlefields demanded an annulment.

Babbitt took Ted aside to talk. But rather
than condemn his son, Babbitt told Ted that he "got a sneaking pleasure
out of the fact that you knew what you wanted to do and did it." As for
himself, Babbitt lamented that he'd "never done a single thing I've wanted
to in my whole life."

Commentary

When Sinclair Lewis wrote Babbitt, he
succeeded in creating a caricature of success typifying the mind-set of
the twenties. The "big booster" filled with "vim and vigor," Babbitt is
a character without a real soul. He gleans his opinions from newspapers
or from business peers. Even Babbitt's extra-marital affair is a "standard
deviation."

Lewis attempts to indict these "standard"
symbols of American prosperity - popularity, hidden pleasures, money, shiny
cars, and self-obsession - by citing the weaknesses of both radical and
conservative viewpoints. George is truly discontent in both settings. While

Babbitt has been criticized for its lack of character depth, it seems that
it would have been impossible to make Babbitt profound. The satirical essence
of the novel requires that George be shallow and complacently mediocre.

Lewis does provide some hope symbolized by Ted, who does exactly what his
father would have liked to have done. However, perhaps Babbitt's reaction
to his son's elopement suggests that there is still something more to him
than a cardboard front. Ted's question to his father at novel's end divulges
the true message of Babbitt: "Gosh, dad, are you really going to be human?"

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