Sunny Herold
Professor Moore
History 132: Paper #2
2 December 2009
Shallow Babbitt George F. Babbitt is a text-book example of a conformist businessman whose life is based on appearance and material items. Lewis not only accurately portrays Babbitt as a symbol of the shady business world of the 1920’s, but also makes him a symbol of sympathy. Babbitt’s shallow fixations and arrogant behavior throughout the book reflect May Sinclair’s review of Babbitt as “a bundle of pompous negations, futilities, [and] preposterous vanities” (May Sinclair, “The Man from Main Street,” The New York Times, September 24, 1922). Although his character is criticized in such a negative light, his troubles are realistic and easy to relate to. Even with all of his amenities and thriving job, Babbitt is unhappy and fantasizes regularly. When Babbitt finally realizes his discontent and tries to change, he is shunned from the community. The setting of the novel is the 1920’s in a fictional city called Zenith, a typical booming town full of factories, hope, and skyscrapers. Lewis correctly depicts the time period after WWI, when business was booming and materialism was rampant. Everything was about industry and conforming. Everyone longed to have the best and most recent appliances and the best appearance. Therefore, there was a huge increase in consumer spending. Babbitt’s house in Floral Heights is described as being “right out of Cheerful Modern Houses for Medium Incomes” (Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 18). There is no description of the joyful family activities taken place in the home, just trifling narrative about appliances and furniture. “In fact there was but one thing wrong with the Babbitt house: It was not a home” (Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 19). Babbitt puts more effort into the appearance of his house and the appliances in it than he puts into his relationships with his family. It’s not the family itself that makes him happy, but the appearance of his family and their home. Throughout the book, Babbitt is mesmerized with material possessions and how they represent one’s status. The name of the city even represents how highly important the citizens think they are, as “zenith” literally means the point of culmination. Even trivial objects such as alarm clocks were cause for immense pride. “Babbitt was proud of being awakened by such a rich device. Socially it was almost as creditable as buying expensive cord tires” (Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 8). Who cares about the quality of an alarm clock? That does not show anything about a person’s value or worth. It is just nonsense. Babbitt’s lack of real emotion and relationships with people in life forces him to feel abnormal passion towards material possessions. “To George F. Babbitt, as to most prosperous citizens of Zenith, his motor car was poetry and tragedy, love and heroism” (Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 27). Not once does he describe his wife in such tender words. It is sad that he forms deeper relationships with inanimate objects than he does with his family. All he does is complain about his family because underneath all of the fancy cars and commercialism, is unhappiness. Babbitt doesn’t live for himself, he lives to impress others and climb the social ladder. His whole life is a façade. Instead of enjoying the important things in life such as family and love, he wastes it on business, politics, and possessions. The conforming and shallow ways of middle-class businessmen during the 1920’s is also represented through out Babbitt. Babbitt describes his work as “artistic creation”, when all it really consists of are empty and shallow advertisements (Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 42). Although his business brings him great success, it is unsatisfying and superficial. It is not until his friend, Paul Riesling, protests, “All we do is cut each other’s throats and make the public pay for it”, that Babbitt realizes the tedious routine of his life (Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 68). Through Babbitt’s real estate business, brownnosing, and booster club meetings, he attempts to rise in social hierarchy. He is constantly trying to impress a wealthy family, the McKelvey’s, to join the elite upper circle of Zenith. “He liked McKelvey’s smile as much as the social advancement to be had from his favor” (Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 198).” Through out the entire book, Babbitt is consumed with the idea of joining this elite circle and stops at nothing to grab the attention of this snobby group. It is pitiful that social status was based on such nonsense and superficiality. His attempts to impress them are pathetic and when they finally get the McKelveys to have dinner with them, it does not go as planned. “It was a dinner without a soul. For no reason that was clear to Babbitt, heaviness was over them and they spoke laboriously and unwillingly” (Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 201). The McKelveys treat the Babbitts as if they were below them. Once Babbitt finally realizes that the return invitation he was hoping for is not going to come, he swears the McKelveys off completely claiming he is sick of “this idiotic chasing round” (Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 204). For once Babbitt realizes the shallowness of his actions. However, when the “unimportant” and “poor” Overbrooks invite the Babbitts to dinner, they treat them with the same uncaring attitude and shun them because it would be too embarrassing to have them as friends. It doesn’t matter if the Overbrooks are genuinely nice people and fun to hang out with. All that matters is what suburb they live in and the size of their paycheck. Babbitt is green with envy of the people who have more than him, yet he demeans those who are less fortunate. The sad thing is that the point of their dinner parties is not to enjoy companionship at all but to advertise their rank in their pointless social hierarchy. Another controversy between Babbitt and his dinner guests is alcohol. Alcohol plays a big role in the book despite the fact that it was Prohibition. At one of the Babbitt’s dinner parties the issue of prohibition is discussed. They all agree how terrible it is to break the law but they do it anyway. They are so hypocritical that they have the nerve to say, “You don’t want to forget prohibition is a mighty good thing for the working-class. Keeps ‘em from wasting their money and lowering their productiveness” (Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 119). They are the working class and they are indeed wasting their money. It is not as big of a deal that they were drinking because many people broke the laws during Prohibition, that’s why it didn’t work. The problem is their hypocritical view that it’s okay for just them to drink, but they look down upon the so-called sinners who are “lowering their productiveness”. All that matters is that they “appear” to believe in morality even while they are breaking the rules. Once again, everything is about appearance and not the actuality of things. When Babbitt finally realizes the error of his ways and breaks away from conformity, he is shut out from his social circle and even his business starts to suffer. He starts to really experience life and does things he wants just to end up being forced back into his compliant ways. Whenever he is approached by his former cronies, they try to coerce him into joining the “Good Citizens’ League”. “He felt a compulsion back to all the standards he had so vaguely yet so desperately been fleeing” (Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 347). In the end, he ends up going back to his old ways only to be there for his family. He realizes he can’t escape something he helped construct and hopes his son will break out and have a brighter future. Although Babbitt does not break free from his conformist society, he does influence his son to. Babbitt’s struggles are very easy to relate to even in our culture now. Everyone lives their lives based on the media and the shallow messages it creates. Many middle-aged men are unhappy with their lives and experience a “mid-life crisis” just as Babbitt does. His obsession with material objects and being well-known coincide with most of people’s lives today. Therefore, his character is very realistic and relatable. You almost feel bad for him even though he got himself into the mess by helping create such a shallow society.