辛克莱刘易斯Sinclair Lewis.pptVIP

Nevertheless, he tires of that sort of life and takes a vacation to Maine with his friend Paul Riesling, an artist who has been forced into the role of a businessman. When later Paul is put into prison because he has shot his wife, almost killing her, Babbitt is shaken and feels that his life is empty. Discontented with the superficial existence he leads, he tries to be more “liberal” and goes on a trip to Maine alone which results in nothing. He meets a new friend, Mrs Tanis Junique and enters into a liaison with the attractive widow. But the fear of social censure proves too much for him and he retreats from the love affair. Towards the end of the book Babbitt joins the Good Citizens’ League though he once refused to be a member of that anti-labour vigilante organization because of his stubborn discontent. Back into the business order of Zenith he feels a spiritual union with his wife, but hopes for a fuller, more independent life for his not very promising son. The image of the protagonist is so successfully created that a word “Babbittry,” meaning smug acceptance of the ethical and social standards of ordinary business and middle-class respectability, is added to the English vocabulary. Meaning It is Babbitt’s tragedy that he can never be anything but Babbitt. His escape from conformity with his class, his yielding to his temptations and his efforts to express his own individuality all end in failure. Themes Lewis criticizes Babbittry, that is, materialism, cultural vulgarity, hypocrisy, and conformism. Realistic Technique No writer before Lewis had given reader so close and so comprehensive a picture of the commercial world and its inhabitants. With Babbitt , Lewis began the method he was to follow in his later books. This method includes full familiarization with the field and setting of the book---through carefully recorded interviews, reading, listening to speeches , attending conversations and preparing full summaries of the plot and the structure of