Main Street

Summary

Main Street, published in 1920, was a sensational best seller that made Sinclair Lewis famous and gave Americans a phrase for small-town conformity. Carol Milford, a lively, idealistic college graduate and librarian in St. Paul, marries Will Kennicott, a solid, kind-hearted doctor, and moves with him to his home town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, a prairie town of about three thousand people. Lewis's preface declares that the town is Main Streets everywhere. Carol is shocked by the ugliness of the town, its mud streets, ugly buildings and narrow minds, and she sets out to reform it. She tries to bring beauty and culture: she redecorates her house, gives a lively party, joins the women's club, the Thanatopsis, proposes a new city hall, and organizes an amateur theatre. Each effort meets indifference, gossip or ridicule. The townspeople, led by figures such as the banker and the leading families, are suspicious of anything new and complacent about their own virtue. Carol finds a few kindred spirits: the radical handyman Miles Bjornstam, who marries her maid Bea, the kind teacher Vida Sherwin, and later a young tailor's assistant with artistic dreams, Erik Valborg. Her friendship with Erik causes scandal, and he leaves town. Bea and her child die of typhoid, and the town hounds Miles away. Restless and unhappy, Carol leaves Will and their son and goes to Washington, where she works during the First World War. After about two years she returns to Gopher Prairie, more tolerant, aware of Will's goodness, though still refusing to admit that Main Street is all it should be. She tells Will that she may not have fought the good fight but has kept the faith. Lewis's satire is sharp, but he also gives the town its due, and the novel asks whether reform comes from scorn or from understanding.

Top Lessons

• Satire and fairness

  Lewis mocks the town but also shows Carol's faults. Students can weigh both.

• Reform and humility

  Carol's plans fail partly because she scorns the people she wants to help.

• Marriage

  Will and Carol are very different. Their marriage survives through patience.

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