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Babbitt It is generally regarded as Lewis’ s best book. It depicts the complacency and materialism of the protagonist Babbitt, a real-estate agent and representative middle-class family man from Zenith, a Mid- Western small town. He is the epitome of the smug American philistine. He tries to spite convention, conformity and smugness of middle class life by pursuing liberalism and sexual freedom, but he soon finds the price of nonconformity too great and resign himself to conventions. Finally, he hopes that his son might challenge the forces he himself has compromised with. This novel criticizes bourgeois materialism and satirizes the standardization and vulgarity of life in a business culture and the suppression of moral conscience under the burden of middle class customs. “Babbittry” enter the language to mean energetic shallowness and self-satisfaction. Comment on Lewis: 1. His fiction reveals America’s contradictions and its grotesque vulgarities, and helps free American literature from the remnants of the genteel tradition of the 19th century. 2. His reputation primarily rests on his sardonic depiction of American materialism and of the banalities (陈腐）of middle-class Americans. 3. As a sociological writer, Lewis worked very hard to capture characteristic details. He never took up a project before he gathered enough authentic materials through his observation and investigation. 4. Lewis had a sharp eye for detail, a keen ear for actual American speech, and a marvelous gift of mimicry(模仿）. His novels are filled with the colloquialism and the cliché of the American language. He wanted to reform the American he pictured by skillfully arousing his readers’ sympathies for the nonconformists （不从国教者）in a conformist society. 5. Lewis is well known for his satiric monologue. The ironical effect of such monologue is often achieved by contradicting character’s words and his actions. 6. In characterization, Lewis was inclined to create types that embody the rep