NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt is a satirical depiction of the mediocrity of business America. Lewis's anger with the mass conformity of the 1920 s businessman is portrayed through his middle-class protagonist George F. Babbitt - the embodiment of the materialism, hypocrisy and ignorance by which Lewis is so appalled. Lewis portrays Zenith's middle-class citizens as similarly standard, completely defined by their comfortable, homogenized world.
Babbitt recognizes and then seeks to expose the hypocrisy and emptiness of middle class life, but he only succeeds in realizing that he is trapped by his way of life. Lewis uses Babbitt as a vehicle to show the reader America's radical homogenization of lifestyles, activities, and ultimately, views on life and themselves. George Follensbee Babbitt is a 46 -year-old real-estate broker who lives in Zenith, a midwestern urban center of which Babbitt is especially fond. Both Zenith and its inhabitants are characterized with a depressing sameness.
Lewis never reveals the location of the city, and if "a stranger suddenly dropped into the business-center of Zenith he could not have told whether he was in a city of Oregon or Georgia, Ohio or Maine, Oklahoma or Manitoba" (53. ) This ambiguous city is home to Babbitt and his family, who live in a moderately expensive and modern house that is almost identical to every other house lining the groomed streets in their stereotypical neighborhood. Lewis describes that although their house has "the best of taste, the best of inexpensive rugs, a simple and laudable architecture, and the latest conveniences it {has} nothing to do with the Babbitts, nor anyone else" (15. ) Babbitt's desire for his house to be like everyone else's is based on the idea that if his house fits the homogenized mold, then he can never be accused of not having an adequate and luxurious lifestyle. The downfall to Babbitt's strategy is that their house has no personality, no individuality. "It {is} not a home" (15. ) This lack of personality is all too apparent in other aspects of Babbitts life, such as how he chooses to occupy his time. Every morning Babbitt wakes up, gets in his mediocre car, and drives through Zenith to the tall building where he works amidst a sea of other Babbitts. He lunches at the Zenith Athletic Club, which Lewis describes as "not athletic, {not} exactly a club, but is Zenith to perfection" (56. ) What Lewis means when he says this is that every Babbitt in Zenith belongs to the Club simply for the opportunity to climb another rung on their social ladders. It seems that the members are more mechanized things then social businessmen.
From the outside the Club looks like any other building in Zenith; however, the inside is lavishly decorated to increase the members sense of importance. Much like Babbitt's house, the conveniences and luxuries are mostly for show: "at one end of the room {is} a heraldic and hooded stone fireplace which the club's advertising-pamphlet asserts to be not only larger then any of the fireplaces in European castles but of a draught incomparably more scientific. It {is} also much cleaner, as no fire {has} ever been built there" (60. ) As well as the Athletic Club, Babbitt also belongs to the Boosters' Club, the Zenith Chamber of Commerce, the Chatham Road Presbyterian Church, the Elks, and ultimately, the Good Citizen's League. Lewis explains that like all conformists, Babbitt is a joiner.
The more organizations he belongs to, the less he has to think for himself. Thinking for himself is not, after all, one of Babbitt's strong-suits. His opinions and ideas are formed at his breakfast table where he reads the opinion pages so he can have something "intelligent" to say if the need should arise. Babbitt likes to keep busy so he can "avoid the bewilderment of thinking" (278. ) This is one of the most damning looks at Babbitt and the 1920 s businessman Lewis offers. Lewis seems fed up with the boring and utterly complacent attitudes of the American business world. When Babbitt's first speech is printed in the Advocate-Times, he is scared because he realizes that he has lost his anonymity.
He is now a name and a face, and he must think for himself. That proves to be a problem, because no one in Zenith thinks or speaks for himself for fear of interrupting the routine. Their standardization is so rampant, people are afraid to step into the spotlight and be an individual. Babbitt takes the plunge, and it doesn't take him too long to become bored and discontented. When Lewis shows Babbitt as dissatisfied with his life, he replaces his dislike of the protagonist with sympathy.
By having Babbitt come to the realization that his lifestyle is hollow, Lewis is giving Babbitt an individuality - he is yanking Babbitt out of the conformist mold he has occupied the first half of the book. Babbitt does something that his old self "would have scoffed at: " he refuses to join the Good Citizen's League. Babbitt goes out on a limb and spends some time experimenting with different people and lifestyles; he goes on a sort of personal vision quest. However, Babbitt comes to the conclusion that it is too late for him to escape the lifestyle of which he is so accustomed. In returning to the middle-class world whose faults he can now clearly see, Babbitt accepts responsibility for his choices. He accepts the middle-class world that he finds so unfulfilling not as something that happened to him but as something he helped create.
He joins the League. Although Babbitt did not have control over his own life, he could control the future of the younger generation. He told his son not to "be scared of the family nor all of Zenithnor of yourself the way I've been" (410. ) For although it was too late for Babbitt, it was not too late for Ted. Although exaggerated and satirical, Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt is more a history lesson then a work of literature. Although it is a biased portrayal of the 1920 s business world, it does give a glimpse into the world of the middle class. Obsessed with urban America and motivated only by the desire for superficial things, the businessman was a key factor in the development of American life.
Although it is eighty-years-old, copies of Babbitt still fly off bookstore's shelves. More then any other reason, I think that Babbitt is still in print because people are scared of becoming Babbitt. The world we live in is still centered around money, business, and success, and until that changes, Babbitt will still be out there. In his conclusion Lewis reminds us that Babbitt was not a happy man, and if he had it to do over, he would follow his heart and not worry about what the rest of the world thought. That is the best advice that anyone can receive, and in the world we are living in today, many more people need to hear it.
Free research essays on topics related to: business world, middle class, club, lewis, good citizen
Research essay sample on Middle Class Good Citizen
