Babbitt

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.

Top Lessons

• Conformity

  Babbitt thinks what his group thinks. Students can examine how social pressure works.

• Friendship

  Babbitt's love for Paul is the most genuine thing in his life.

• The unlived life

  Babbitt's final words to Ted reveal his regret.

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