Work record

Babbitt

Name: Babbitt
Author: Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis

1922 · Early 20th Century · Novel · English

Public domainRead full text Download EPUB Five-minute digest

Abstract

Written: 1920-1922
Setting: 1920-1921; The fictional Midwestern city of Zenith
Author: Sinclair Lewis
Country: United States
Language: English
Genre: Satirical novel
Form: Novel in 34 chapters
Recommended: Grades 10–12 (Satire of business culture; some drinking and an affair.)

Portrait. A prosperous broker of houses and lots in a booming Midwestern city owns every modern convenience and repeats every popular opinion. Lewis follows his day hour by hour, from alarm clock to bedtime.

Success. He rises in civic life, delivers a rousing address celebrating the standardized citizen, and enjoys the clubs, slang and business deals of the 1920s.

Crisis. His closest friend, a frustrated would-be violinist, shoots his wife and goes to prison. Shaken, the broker drifts into drink, a love affair and sympathy for strikers and a radical lawyer.

Pressure. Neighbours and clients cool toward him and a vigilante civic league demands loyalty. When his wife needs emergency surgery he gives up and rejoins the crowd.

Ending. He still blesses his son's wish to marry and work with machines, confessing his own lifelong regret. The book gave English a word for smug conformity and helped win Lewis the Nobel Prize.

For readers. The satire is funny but also sad, for the hero glimpses a better life he lacks the courage to choose. Students can compare his boosters' slogans with modern advertising and ask how much of their own opinions they have chosen freely, and how much they simply absorbed.

Main characters

George F. Babbitt: A prosperous, conformist real-estate broker.
Myra Babbitt: A dutiful, unexciting wife.
Paul Riesling: A sensitive man trapped in business and marriage.
Ted Babbitt: A teenager who loves machines.
Tanis Judique: A woman with whom Babbitt has an affair.
Seneca Doane: A radical lawyer and old classmate.

Summary

Babbitt, published in 1922, is Sinclair Lewis's satire of the American businessman, and its title became a common noun for a self-satisfied conformist. George F. Babbitt, forty-six, is a prosperous real-estate broker in the fictional Midwestern city of Zenith. He owns a house in the new suburb of Floral Heights, a car, and all the latest gadgets, belongs to the right clubs and the Presbyterian church, and repeats the opinions of his newspaper and his friends. He is a booster who believes in progress, business and the Standardized American Citizen, praised in a speech by his friend at the real-estate board. Yet he is vaguely unhappy. He dreams of a fairy girl who sees him as gallant, and he cares deeply for his college friend Paul Riesling, a sensitive man who wanted to be a violinist and is trapped in an unhappy marriage. When Paul shoots and wounds his nagging wife Zilla and is sent to prison, Babbitt's world shakes. Alone while his wife Myra is away, he rebels: he drinks, takes up with the widow Tanis Judique and her fast set, and defends the radical lawyer Seneca Doane during a strike. His friends and business associates pressure him, and the Good Citizens' League threatens his trade and reputation. When Myra falls seriously ill and needs an operation, Babbitt returns to her and to conformity, joining the league. At the end, however, he learns that his son Ted has secretly married and wants to work with machines rather than go to college. Babbitt, surprisingly, takes his son's side, telling him that he himself has never done a single thing he wanted to in his whole life. Lewis mocks the boosterism and slang of 1920s business culture, yet he also gives Babbitt a heart, and the book remains a sharp portrait of conformity and of the hunger for something more. It contributed to Lewis's Nobel Prize in 1930.

Virtues in this work

Friendship: Babbitt stands by his friend Paul Riesling through his crisis and imprisonment.
Hope: He wants a freer life for his son.

Plot or Argument

A day in Zenith
Babbitt's morning, office, lunch at the club and evening show his comfortable routine.
Booster
He speaks at the real-estate convention and rises in civic life.
Rebellion
After Paul goes to prison, Babbitt drinks, has an affair, and defends Seneca Doane.
Return
Myra's illness brings him back to conformity; he supports his son's independence.

Characters

George F. Babbitt, protagonist
A prosperous, conformist real-estate broker.
Myra Babbitt, Babbitt's wife
A dutiful, unexciting wife.
Paul Riesling, Babbitt's friend
A sensitive man trapped in business and marriage.
Ted Babbitt, Babbitt's son
A teenager who loves machines.
Tanis Judique, widow
A woman with whom Babbitt has an affair.
Seneca Doane, lawyer
A radical lawyer and old classmate.

Lessons

Conformity
Babbitt thinks what his group thinks. Students can examine how social pressure works.
- How does Babbitt decide what to believe?
- What happens when he disagrees?
- Where do you see conformity today?
Related across the library
- The Bible, Source
  The Old Testament of the King James Version of the Bible The First Book of Moses Called Genesis The Second Book of Moses Called Exodus The Third Book of Moses Called Leviticus The Fourth Book of Moses Called Numbers The Fifth Book of Moses Called Deuteronomy The Book of Joshua The Book of Judges The Book of Ruth The First Book of Samuel The Second Book of Samuel The First Book of the Kings The Second Book of the Kings The First Book of the Chronicles The Second Book of the Chronicles Ezra The Book of Nehemiah Th...
- First Inaugural Address ("The only thing we have to fear"), Lesson: Wealth and its proper place
  Wealth and its proper place. The address argues that the Depression exposed a false standard of success. Happiness lies in achievement and creative effort; public office is a trust, not a source of profit; and confidence depends on honesty and honor. Roosevelt frames economic reform as the recovery of older moral truths.
- Main Street, Lesson: Satire and fairness
  Satire and fairness. Lewis mocks the town but also shows Carol's faults. Students can weigh both.
- Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case
  Jekyll explains that his original supply of salt was impure, that fresh supplies fail, and that he expects his last transformation.
- Capital, Volume I, Chapter I: Commodities
  a definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things From the section on the fetishism of commodities, where Marx argues that market prices disguise relations between producers as if they were properties of the goods themselves.
Friendship
Babbitt's love for Paul is the most genuine thing in his life.
- Why does Paul matter to Babbitt?
- How does Paul's fate affect him?
- What makes a true friend?
Related across the library
- Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Opening page
  Mike Mulligan had a steam shovel, a beautiful red steam shovel. The first words of the book introduce Mike and his machine before her name is given.
- The Histories, Lesson: Character is tested by power
  Character is tested by power. The obituary sketches of Galba, Otho and Vitellius ask how the same man appears before and after rule. Galba seemed fit to reign until he reigned; Otho, a figure of Nero's court, earns praise by his death; Vespasian improves on the throne. Tacitus treats office as a revealer of character rather than a maker of it.
- The Poetic Edda, Full Text
  rendering by Genzmer with excellent notes by Andreas Heusler There are competent translations in both Norwegian and Swedish The lack of any complete and adequately annotated English rendering in metrical form based on a critical text and profiting by the cumulative labors of such scholars as Mogk Vigfusson Finnur Jonsson Grundtvig Bugge Gislason Hildebrand L ning Sweet Niedner Ettm ller M llenhoff Edzardi B M Olsen Sievers Sijmons Detter Heinzel Falk Neckel Heusler and Gering has kept this extraordinary work pra...
- The War of the Worlds, Full Text
  their mathematical learning is evidently far in excess of ours and to have carried out their preparations with a well-nigh perfect unanimity Had our instruments permitted it we might have seen the gathering trouble far back in the nineteenth century Men like Schiaparelli watched the red planet it is odd by-the-bye that for countless centuries Mars has been the star of war but failed to interpret the fluctuating appearances of the markings they mapped so well All that time the Martians must have been getting read...
- Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Lesson: Loyalty to an old friend
  Loyalty to an old friend. When new machines make Mary Anne old-fashioned, Mike refuses to sell her for junk and goes looking for work they can do together. The book shows young children faithfulness that does not depend on being newest or best.
The unlived life
Babbitt's final words to Ted reveal his regret.
- What has Babbitt wanted to do?
- Why does he support Ted?
- How can one avoid Babbitt's regret?
Related across the library
- Principles of Economics, Lesson: Thinking at the margin
  Thinking at the margin. The value of a unit of a good depends on the least important use it would serve. Choices are usually about one more or one less, not all or nothing.
- The Count of Monte Cristo, Lesson: Education as liberation
  Education as liberation. In prison, Faria turns Dantès from a simple sailor into a learned man. Knowledge, not just treasure, makes his transformation possible.
- Bleak House, Lesson: The fog of Chancery
  The fog of Chancery. Dickens opens in fog and mud and makes the Court of Chancery its center, a court where a will case has run so long that no one remembers its meaning. The suit poisons everyone who hopes in it, from Miss Flite and Gridley to Richard. Jarndyce's refusal to touch it is the novel's model of freedom.
- Bleak House, Full Text
  the river where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great and dirty city Fog on the Essex marshes fog on the Kentish heights Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners wheezing by the firesides of their wards fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper down...
- Psychopathia Sexualis, A SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXUAL LIFB 17
  shown how a slight displacement of the psychical elements under consideration may effect this transition Whatever effects associating habits may have on possible cases of acquired masochism the same effects are produced by the varying tricks of heredity upon orig- inal masochism No new eleme'nt is thereby added to bondage but on the contrary the very element is deleted which cements love and dependence and thereby distin- guishes bondage from masochism and abnormality from perversion It is quite natural that onl...

Context

The 1920s saw rapid growth in American cities, in business clubs and boosters' associations, in advertising, and in new consumer goods such as cars and radios.

Composition

Lewis researched business life carefully; the novel was published by Harcourt, Brace in 1922 and dedicated to Edith Wharton.

Reception

Widely read and debated; the word 'Babbitt' entered dictionaries for a complacent businessman.

Class / Society Money Wealth Identity Self Satire Folly Friendship

Comparisons

Main Street
Lewis's earlier satire of small-town life.
The Great Gatsby
Another 1920s novel about wealth and American dreams.

Quotes

“I’ve never done a single thing I’ve wanted to in my whole life!”

— Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, Chapter XXXIV (Project Gutenberg #1156).Quote card

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter II
Alice grows to over nine feet, weeps a pool, and doubts her own identity, testing her memory with multiplication and geography.
Bleak House, Chapter I, In Chancery
Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. The famous opening description of London on a November afternoon, leading to the Court of Chancery at the heart of the fog.
Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., Full Text
of the patent id at claims and of the patent C Myriad s patents would if valid give it the exclusive right to isolate an individual s BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes or any strand of or more nucleotides within the genes by breaking the covalent bonds that connect the DNA to the rest of the individual s genome The patents would also give Myriad the exclusive right to synthetically create BRCA cDNA In Myriad s view manipulating BRCA DNA in either of these fashions triggers its right to exclude others from making its patente...
The Three Musketeers, Chapter LXVI, Execution
Let the justice of God be done! The man in the red cloak cries this in midstream as the sentence is completed.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter I
Alice checks whether the DRINK ME bottle is marked poison before tasting it, then shrinks to ten inches high.

“Here’s the specifications of the Standardized American Citizen!”

— Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, Chapter XIV (Project Gutenberg #1156).Quote card

Sartor Resartus, Book II, Ch. 7 (The Everlasting No)
Teufelsdröckh describes unbelief, a continual fear of everything, and the thought of suicide, from which an 'after-shine' of Christianity and his own indolence withheld him; the crisis breaks in an act of defiance on the Rue Saint-Thomas de l'Enfer.
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, §§5-8
Childhood dreams and visions of devils and hell-fire at nine or ten years old, and their eventual fading.
On Christian Doctrine, Full Text
author now proceeds to discuss the subject of signs He first defines what a sign is and shows that there are two classes of signs the natural and the conventional Of conventional signs which are the only class here noticed words are the most numerous and important and are those with which the interpreter of Scripture is chiefly concerned The difficulties and obscurities of Scripture spring chiefly from two sources unknown and ambiguous signs The present book deals only with unknown signs the ambiguities of langu...
Sophist, Speech and false statement, c. 263a
Theaetetus, with whom I am now speaking, is flying Set beside 'Theaetetus sits', this is the dialogue's test case of a sentence that is about something real and yet false.
Diamond v. Chakrabarty, Summary
In 1972 Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, a microbiologist working for the General Electric Company, applied for a patent on a bacterium of the genus Pseudomonas into which he had introduced plasmids, hereditary units outside the chromosome, that allowed it to break down several components of crude oil. No natural bacterium had this combined capacity. The patent examiner allowed his claims to the process of making the bacteria and to an inoculum of straw carrying them, but rejected the claims to the bacteria themselves,...

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

Babbitt's morning routine in Chapter I.
His speech to the real-estate board.
Paul Riesling's crime and imprisonment.
The Good Citizens' League.
Babbitt's talk with Ted.

Key terms and names

Booster: An enthusiastic promoter of his town and business.
Babbittry: Smug, materialistic conformity.
Satire: Writing that criticizes through humor.
Realtor: A real-estate agent; Babbitt insists on this professional title.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension What is Babbitt's job?
Comprehension What happens to Paul Riesling?
Comprehension Why does Babbitt return to conformity?
Interpretation Why does Babbitt rebel?
Interpretation What does his final speech to Ted mean?
Big Question How much should we let others decide our opinions?

Faith Connections

Romans 12:2 (Scripture)
Be not conformed to this world; Babbitt's life is conformity.
Luke 12:15 (Scripture)
A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: A life built on others' opinions and possessions leaves a man empty; Babbitt's rebellion fails, but he hopes his son may live more freely.

Rhetorical device: satiric catalogue. Lewis lists Babbitt's gadgets and opinions to show how standardized his life is.

Debate: Resolved: that Babbitt deserves sympathy rather than scorn.

Memory Work

I’ve never done a single thing I’ve wanted to in my whole life!
Chapter XXXIV. Babbitt's honest confession of regret.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Trace Babbitt's rebellion. Why does it fail?

Comparison with Main Street: Compare Babbitt with Carol Kennicott in Main Street as rebels against conformity.

Creative Prompts

Essay
Is Babbitt a figure of fun or of sympathy?
Dialogue
Write a conversation between Babbitt and Paul in college, before they went into business.
Classroom
Find examples of advertising slogans in the novel and compare them to modern ads.