Babbitt Essay Research Paper BabbittIf one were free essay sample

Babbitt Essay, Research Paper BabbittIf one were to look at the words of any modern lexicon they would happen amongst them the word Babbitt. If one were to peek, nevertheless at a lexicon from the early portion of this century, the word Babbitt would non look. The word Babbitt means # 8220 ; a ego satisfied individual who conforms readily to conventional in-between category thoughts and ideals, particularly of concern and stuff success # 8221 ; ( Websters New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 106 ) . The word Babbitt, and its subsequent significance, comes from the 1922 novel by Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt. It is a novel which shows a transverse subdivision of American middle category life through the eyes of the ultimate conformist, George F. Babbitt. By turning Babbitt # 8217 ; s name into a noun # 8220 ; a name has been given to that which people recognize as true to their experience of life, but which they hadn # 8217 ; t realized in any tangible manner before # 8221 ; ( Love 12 ) . We will write a custom essay sample on Babbitt Essay Research Paper BabbittIf one were or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Just analysing Babbitt himself nevertheless, is non plenty if one wishes to truly acknowledge the beauty of Lewis # 8217 ; s work. One must dig deeper, under the surface, beyond Babbitt # 8217 ; s personality, to bring out the methods, and the grounds behind Lewis # 8217 ; s # 8220 ; madness # 8221 ; . What must be explored in Lewis # 8217 ; s work is, why was Babbitt created the manner he was, and why has he go such a paradigm of American middle category life? To truthfully, and accurately reply these inquiries one must cognize who George F. Babbitt was, who Sinclair Lewis was, the historical context of the 1920 # 8217 ; s, and most significantly what Lewis wanted out of Babbitt. George F. Babbitt is a adult male without an individuality. His # 8220 ; individualism # 8221 ; has been imposed on him by a universe of other things. # 8220 ; Just as he was an Elk, a Booster, and a member of the chamber of commercialism, merely as the priests of the Presbyterian Church determin ed his every spiritual belief and the Senators who controlled the Republican party decided in small smoky suites in Washington what he should believe about disarming, duty, and Germany, so did the big national advertizers fix the surface of his life, repair what he believed to be his individualism # 8221 ; ( 30 ) . Babbitt is a adult male who does everything based on how it will look to others. He urgently wants his boy, Theodore Roosevelt Babbitt, to go to a existent university, even though he himself confesses to hold learned nil utile at college. Babbitt wants his boy to travel to college for all the incorrect grounds, he wants to be given the prestigiousness of holding a boy in a all right State establishment ( Love 53 ) . He will make anything for his boy, every bit long as he is given proper recognition ( 219 ) . Babbitt lends much of his clip and energy to the Sunday school at the Church. This, nevertheless does non come about because of Babbitt # 8217 ; s selfless nature, instead he wants the # 8220 ; congratulations and good reputation # 8221 ; that comes with being involved in the church ( 219 ) . Babbitt # 8217 ; s main features are # 8220 ; shouting backslapping and self witting maleness # 8221 ; ( Light 77 ) . Babbitt feels that he must prosecute in such infantile manoeuvres so that everyone is assured of his # 8220 ; ginger, clout, vision, hearty Americanism # 8221 ; ( Schorer 327 ) . Babbitt # 8217 ; s chief end is power, anyhow he can acquire to it. He does non desire to be the mean in-between category adult male, he wants to be like the bank president ( and his close friend ) William Washington Eathorne. He wants to be # 8220 ; pleasurably, strictly, in cold blood powerful # 8221 ; ( 218 ) . For Babbitt concern represents the exclusive intent of life. # 8220 ; At his in-between category degree concern non merely thrives but it is the main cultural characteristic # 8221 ; ( Schorer 327 ) . Babbitt sees his life as the new moving r idge of America. To Babbitt the in-between category man of affairs is taking over the state. He sees himself as something of a romantic hero ( Light 74 ) . # 8220 ; The romantic hero was no longer the knight, the roving poet, the cowboy, the aeronaut, nor the brave immature territory lawyer, but instead the great gross revenues director # 8221 ; ( 143 ) . Babbitt, nevertheless is neither a hero, nor a sentimentalist. He lives in a closed universe, like his ain small snake pit ( Schorer 333 ) . His house is everything a house in the in-between category Floral Heights should be. # 8221 ; The sleeping room a modest and pleasant colour strategy, after one of the best criterions designs of the interior designer who did the insides for most of the bad builders # 8217 ; houses in Zenith [ Babbitt s darling town ] # 8230 ; there was a dressing tabular array of solid Ag and a standard bedside book with coloured illustrations-what peculiar book it was can non be ascertained, since no 1 h ad of all time opened it. The Mattresses were exultant modern mattresses which had cost a great trade of money. It was a chef-doeuvre among sleeping rooms, right out of the Cheerful Modern Houses for Medium Incomes. Merely it had nil to make with the Babbitt # 8217 ; s nor with any one else. If people had of all time lived and loved here, read thrillers at midnight, and lain in beautiful laziness on a Sunday forenoon there were no marks of it. It had the air of being a really good room in a really good hotel. Every 2nd house in Floral Heights had a sleeping room exactly like this one # 8221 ; ( 16 ) . Babbitt is a simple conformist. Platitudes needfully come along with a conformist, and Babbitt # 8217 ; s pick of words is no exclusion. # 8221 ; Clich s are the lone words a Babbitt type daring to utilize to show their emotions. Their misinterpretation of emotion is what makes them amusing, monstrous and unsafe # 8221 ; ( Light 78 ) . He can non even cover with his girl # 8217 ; s wish to make societal philanthropic work, without ptyalizing out clich after clich from the # 8220 ; cuneuss of socialism # 8221 ; , to # 8220 ; Now look you here! # 8221 ; ( Light 17 ) . Babbitt is ever looking for the failings of his friends ( Love 20 ) . This comes from his demand to be the best of his clump, before he moves on to a more sophisticated crowd. Babbitt really evaluates people # 8220 ; by tabling their ownerships # 8221 ; ( Light 76 ) . When Babbitt is able to blend with the upper category it becomes his compulsion, and as he retells the narratives of his jaunts his relationships with the rich become more profound. For illustration, when Sir Gerald Doake of Manchester was in Zenith he barely noticed Babbitt # 8217 ; s being. On a alone concern trip to Chicago, nevertheless Doake opted to interrupt the humdrum, and he got intoxicated with Babbitt, one could name it a one dark base. To Babbitt, nevertheless a life long friendly relationship had begun. Babbitt pictured himself, by opportunity, knocking into the Mcelvey, his college buddy who had moved up in the universe. Babbitt fantasized of stating Mcelvey. # 8221 ; I had a just clip in Chicago, ran around with Sir Gerald Doake a batch # 8230 ; Jerry # 8217 ; s an old friend of mine-the married woman and I are believing of running over to England to remain with Jerry in his palace, following twelvemonth # 8221 ; ( 248 ) . Babbitt lived for such brushs where he could demo up his friends, particularly comfortable 1s like Mcelvey. # 8220 ; Babbitt was virtuous the manner society said he should be # 8221 ; ( Love 48 ) . # 8220 ; He advocated, though he did non pattern, the prohibition of intoxicant ; he praised, though he did non obey, the Torahs against motor hurrying ; he paid his debts ; he contributed to the church the Red Cross and the YMCA ; he followed the usage of his kin and cheated merely as it was sanctified by case in point # 8221 ; ( 41 ) . Along these same lines Babbi tt was non unreasonably honest. In one subdivision he gives a joging address on the virtuousnesss of honestness, throwing out clich after clich. Yet in the following breath he swindles a hapless tradesman out of 1000s of dollars. His moral codification is derived from The Puritan concern ethic # 8220 ; which encourages matter-of-fact determinations which so fatigue the scruples # 8221 ; ( Light 82 ) . long wth the tensenesss Babbitt feels to do big amounts of money, he besides feels the tensenesss of societal mounting. Babbitt along with his other metropolitan in-between category friends would wish to come in the societal category of the rich ( Light 82 ) . Babbitt besides feels matrimonial tensenesss as he desires many other adult females, yet he could neer # 8221 ; hazard reputability # 8221 ; by rip offing on Myra. This prospective loss of reputability is the exclusive ground for his continued fidelity to his married woman ( Light 82 ) . This is a perfect illustration of how Babbitt # 8217 ; s ethical motives work. He does non make up ones mind for himself whether things are right, or incorrect, instead he acts based on what society expects from him. Bbbitt speaks of ruddy blooded household oriented America. A topographic point where the # 8220 ; ideal citizen is busier than a bird Canis familiaris at his profession # 8230 ; so he lights up a good cigar and shoots out place to be with the household # 8230 ; Then he goes merrily to bed his scruples clear, holding contributed his touch to the prosperity of the metropolis and to his ain bank history # 8221 ; ( 181-2 ) . # 8220 ; Yet in world Babbitt sleeps fitfully and dreams of flight and rebellion # 8221 ; ( Light 83 ) . Babbitt has neer done anything to do himself, instead than society, happy ( Schorer 329 ) . # 8221 ; He is comfortable but disquieted desiring passionately to prehend something more than motor autos and a house before it is excessively late # 8221 ; ( Light 77 ) . Babbitt can no n further a true temperament because he does non cognize what individualism is. He dreams ever of a faery kid, # 8220 ; a life with a small commotion of love affair and hazard # 8221 ; ( Love 48 ) . The faery kid is neer described nevertheless, because he does non cognize what this commotion of love affair, and peril mean. The faery kid is non needfully a adult female, although Babbitt originally assumes that it is. Babbitt # 8217 ; s discontentedness with life shows us his interior motives and desires. A simple glimpse at Babbitt # 8217 ; s forenoon modus operandi shows merely how fast his defeat is mounting. His forenoon begins with his # 8220 ; crossness about the moisture towels in the bathroom, and the small balls of toast, and the socialist menace and his rebellious and bickering kids. Soon so early in the twenty-four hours we hear the great explosion of weariness: Oh Godhead sometimes I # 8217 ; vitamin Ds like to discontinue the hole game. And the office concern and it em merely as bad. And I act so damn cranky and I don # 8217 ; t intend to, but I get so darned tired ( Light 81 ) . Conformity can be really palling. Even through the morass of conformance, which Babbitt represents there is a surprise. Babbitt is able to interrupt away from the standardised being, merely a small, when the clip comes ( Light 77 ) . # 8220 ; What Babbitt feels and thinks is what it is presently proper to experience and believe. Merely one time during the two old ages that we have him under position, does he venture upon an thought that is even remotely original # 8211 ; and that clip [ Babbitt s effort to liberalise himself ] the unorthodoxy about ruins him. The lesson you may be certain is non lost upon him. No idea will of all time acquire a lodgement in his head, even in the wildest crazes following moonshine gin, that will offer discourtesy to the primnesss of Vergil Gunch, President of the Boosters nine, or to those of old Mr. Eathorne, president of the First State Bank # 8230 ; Babbitt has been rolled through the factory. He emerges the really theoretical account and form of a forward looking, right believing Americano # 8221 ; ( Mencken 22 ) . The immoralities of society, with all of its equal force per unit areas did non let Babbitt to alter his ways. Babbitt # 8217 ; s destiny seems to state that under present conditions nil will of all time be achieved. Babbitt did trail the faery kid. He tried to hold a stable loving relationship with another adult female and, on the other extreme, he went wild and slept with as many adult females as he perchance could. However, # 8220 ; it is Babbitt # 8217 ; s destine itself, an dry acknowledgment that all his longings and aspirations and efforts to get away hold gone for naught # 8221 ; , which shows us who Babbitt truly became. Babbitt # 8217 ; s destiny is # 8220 ; a decision in which nil is concluded # 8221 ; ( Love 50 ) . At the terminal of the novel the world of his married woman # 8217 ; s appendectomy breaks his phantasy, but non all is lost. Babbitt knows that he will ever be a conformist, but he now knows that he has a opportunity to interrupt the rhythm with his boy. He can give his boy a opportunity to catch the # 8220 ; fairy child # 8221 ; . It seems as if the anti # 8211 ; Babbitt is talking in the last lines of the novel when he says to his boy # 8221 ; Take your mill occupation if you want to. Don # 8217 ; t be scared of the household. No, nor all of Zenith. Nor of yourself, the manner I # 8217 ; ve been. Go in front, old adult male! The universe is yours! # 8221 ; ( 326 ) . Babbitt is so wondrous alive that you can # 8217 ; t maintain your eyes off him ( Love 18 ) . To seek and understand how, and why Sinclair Lewis created a character the likes of Babbitt 1 must understand Sinclair Lewis himself, with all his elaboratenesss. Lewis lived in the metropolis but yearned for the simplenesss of the countryside, much like Babbitt ( Love 11 ) . Lewis was ever fighting for the natural rights of adult male to be bestowed on everyone, a rareness in the large metropolis. In some of Lewis # 8217 ; s old plants, before Babbitt, he championed these rights before the American populace. For illustration in The Job Lewis portrayed a female character, Una Goldin, seeking to happen an classless profession. In Main Street Carol Kennicot spends her life seeking for the rights which she feels that she, as a human being, deserves ( Love 8 ) . There are certain inalienable rights, which apply to all people, which Lewis felt society was non allowing. Lewis was a adult male of many passions. Among them # 8220 ; were wit, and workmanship, but above all a poetic passion for his state # 8221 ; ( West 23 ) . Lewis was a adult male who as a popular ironist defied his times. # 8220 ; while our greatest amusing author, Mark Twain, was capable of shriveling sarcasm, he was neer loved for it in his ain times, nor in ours for that affair. Much of Twain # 8217 ; s most annihilating sarcasm was either suppressed by him or ignored by his readers. It is as a humourist that he is best remembered. Similarly great ironists like H.L. Mencken # 8217 ; s satire were deemed to erudite by society. Lewis on the other manus gave Americans acetum and made them like it # 8221 ; ( Love 14 ) . The illustriousness of Lewis # 8217 ; s effort is admired by many as a discovery in American literature, every bit good as something of an mystery. # 8221 ; Lewis is a paradox. He gets off with stating America their mistakes even though Americans are self witting of all unfavorable judgment. Everything is right because we did it. Lewis cryings of the goons of our Klu-Klux-Klan to demo the cruel faces beneath the masks. Yet he is able to boom # 8221 ; ( Lovett 32 ) . Lewis holds his audiences by the importance of his message instead than wit. Lewis in fact writes his sarcasm out of his letdown in his darling state. He is composing in denouncement o f ugliness, in simple black and white ( West 23 ) . A direct consequence of Lewis # 8217 ; letdown with his state was his inability to perpetrate himself or his characters to the new America. Lewis was influenced by the nine -teenth century # 8217 ; s progressive heritage of E. Bellamy in Looking Backwards. # 8220 ; Lewis and his characters project the hope that America could subsume the metropolis and machine civilisation into the traditional democratic model, without giving pastoral values # 8221 ; ( Love 10-11 ) . Sinclair Lewis was a adult male on a mission. Previous to Babbitt he had written sarcasms on everything from the organisation of God, or the Church, to the medical field. By 1921. nevertheless Lewis was sensitive of unfavorable judgment that he was reiterating himself, so he launched himself on a trade name new enterprise ( Light 77 ) . Lewis delved into himself to make a chef-doeuvre for the ages. Lewis # 8217 ; s nature was to compose sarcasm on American values, and the recognized thoughts of his epoch. Although there may be some over-lap to modern-day times, Lewis lived and was composing about the sensational decennary of the mid-twentiess. The coevals in which Lewis was composing, nevertheless, was non his. Lewis was someway able to accomplish celebrity in a coevals which wanted to disregard him, every bit good as his coevalss. This epoch, of drastic alteration, favored younger authors like Hemmingway, Fitzgerald and Don Passo s ( Love 9 ) . Lewis endurance, burying his success, is an mystery in itself. Lewis was inexorable that his novel be a microcosm of American middle category life. he hence did extended research for Babbitt. # 8220 ; From his notes he was able to set into the book a mass of accurate item about apparels, houses, trappingss, autos, nines, existent estate endeavors, and conventions. Therefore we have great assurance in Babbitt typicality in regard to things and sentiments: his toothpaste and bath towels, his grey suit, and his eyeglassess, the contents ofd his pockets, his supporter nine button ; and his indecisive and inconclusive treatment with his married woman Myra about the pick of suits, his concerns for his tummy, the sentiments he gleans from his newspaper # 8217 ; s columns, his contempt for socialist fomenters, and his religion in the strength of the towers of Zenith # 8211 ; all of these observations we are delighted to acknowledge as true # 8221 ; ( Light 80 ) . Through this extended research Lewis found a shallow mercenary universe in a province o f craze, which feared the reds, and a workers revolution, as if it was the pestilence ( Love 7 ) . The fact that Babbitt begins in 1920 is of utmost significance. 1920 is a satiric preliminary to a decennary of dizzying and mindless economic enlargement and compulsion. # 8220 ; Babbitt is the heroic poem of our roar old ages and it remains today as the major certification in literature of American concern civilization # 8221 ; ( Schorer 327 ) . When Lewis delved into the society, of the # 8216 ; roar # 8217 ; old ages, he uncovered awful intolerance of anyone who looked, acted, or thought otherwise. The ill-famed instance of the Italians, Sacco and Vanzetti is a perfect illustration of this sheer intolerance. # 8220 ; They were killed for holding unpopular sentiments. It was a systematic development of foreign blood, their imperfect cognition of English, their unpopular societal positions, and their resistance to the war, is what led to their slayings # 8221 ; ( Love 4 ) . Fur thermore the now ill-famed Klu # 8211 ; Klux # 8211 ; Klan was started at this clip with their end being # 8220 ; native, white, Protestant, domination # 8221 ; ( Love 5 ) . Along with the intolerance, of the mid-twentiess, Lewis besides found a great trade of lip service. Nothing embodies this better than peoples attitudes towards prohibition. Prohibition represented a lip service and blind which manifested the decennary ( Love 6 ) . Babbitt himself applauds the amendment, but so goes out imbibing as if he is above it. Lewis besides felt that people were really hypocritical in their political thoughts, and he illustrated this features within Babbitt. Babbitt speaks of the United States # 8217 ; neutrality with contradictions merely a adult male with many sets of engraved thoughts could express when he says # 8220 ; We got no concern interfering with the Irish, or any other foreign authorities ; still it # 8217 ; s beyond me why we don # 8217 ; t merely measure in there [ Ru ssia ] and kick those Bolshevik cusses out # 8221 ; ( Light 80 ) . It is clear that the many contradictions which represented the mid-twentiess clearly annoyed the more mature Lewis. The Twenties besides represented the beginning of a more unfastened society, like the one we have today. Through the innovation of the wireless # 8220 ; people could now hear everything that was traveling on # 8221 ; , all over the universe ( Love 5 ) . By the clip Theodore Dreiser finished his work, An American Tragedy, sex was an unfastened and respectable topic. The manner was being paved to sexual honestness ( Love 7 ) . Along these same lines the mid-twentiess represented the gradual Ascension of adult females # 8217 ; s hemlines. Womans could now vote, and there were many new occupations opening up for adult females ( Love 6 ) . The old restraints of the earlier decennaries were coming away. You could no longer # 8220 ; maintain # 8216 ; em down on the farm # 8221 ; , so people like George F. Babbitt moved to the large metropoliss ( Love 41-2 ) . Furthermore people were no longer every bit committed to the church. Rather the church was merely used for societal intents, it had become known as the establishment of God # 8221 ; ( Love 7 ) . Babbitt, who was Mr. 1920 used the church merely as a vehicle to run into powerful people, therefore bodying societies actions. Even in visible radiation of all the alterations # 8220 ; in-between category America still, as Babbitt was to demo, was surety to a series of clannish beliefs powerful plenty to find their pleasances every bit good as their duties # 8221 ; ( Love 41 ) . Lewis was looking on the scene right when the emperors new apparels where eventually vanishing ( Love 42 ) . Society was quickly altering right before Lewis # 8217 ; s horrified eyes. Lewis was a adult male who cared profoundly for the universe. He was disappointed, nevertheless, as to the bend the universe was taking. He hence created Babbitt, which beca me a paradigm for many coevalss to come. What nevertheless did Lewis privation to make, in doing Babbitt, and what did he desire to carry through? Sinclair Lewis wanted to # 8220 ; debamboozle American society # 8221 ; , he wanted to the portray the confusion in which Americans ran their lives ( Lovett 34 ) . Lewis desired to accurately portray American center category life. He coveted diging into the freshly found # 8216 ; civilization # 8217 ; of concern. However # 8220 ; Lewis did non simply want to demo the typical baron, synonymous with corruptness. The baron was fiction. The powerful maker, the huge speculator, the fabulous moneyman, the sovereign of tremendous endeavors, was merely a myth. Lewis wanted to demo the universe of the small man of affairs, and more peculiarly the jobber. The jobber who abolishes his ain humanity, in the civilization of concern # 8221 ; ( Schorer 330-1 ) . Lewis was looking for an nonsubjective representation of modern-day societal humanity, instead than the anti # 8211 ; novels of today where merely the book, itself, is existent. ( Love 27 ) . Lewis related in a missive to a friend that # 8221 ; he wanted to do Babbitt large in his reality, in his relation to all of us, non in the least exceeding, yet dramatic, passionate fighting # 8221 ; ( Light 75 ) . Babbitt was supposed to stand for a cast, or a type of mechanical American citizen. Lewis # 8217 ; s disposition was to convey a disclosure to the American people. Lewis wished to demo that # 8220 ; conformance is the great monetary value that our preponderantly commercial civilization exacts of American life # 8221 ; ( Schorer 330 ) . Lewis related in a 1920 missive to Professor Carl van Doren # 8221 ; I want it to be the narrative of an mean concern adult male, a tired concern adult male, non in a goffer prarie but in a metropolis of three or four hundred 1000 people ( every bit Minneapolis or Seattle or Rochester or Atlanta ) with its tremendous industrial po wer, its small theatre, and lively state nine and its overpowering menacing unorthodoxy Hunt, its narrowed eyed ( and damned capable ) suppression of anything endangering its commercial oligarchy. I hope to maintain it every bit far as may be from all propaganda ; I hope to do that adult male live # 8211 ; that adult male we have heard in the Pullman tobacco user, ponderously talking oil stock, the beauty of Lake Louise, the impudence of George the porter, and the excellence of his 1918 Buick which is so much better a theoretical account than the 1919 # 8243 ; ( Love 17 ) . Having one time seen this adult male Lewis wanted to develop him, so that he would non look merely idiosyncratic but, instead a conforming person who retains some capablenesss of his ain ( Light 80 ) . After indicating out the complete conformance the T.B.M. ( tired concern adult male ) exhibits, Lewis wished to demo its detrimental effects. # 8221 ; Lewis has discovered that a Babbitt can endure the tenseness s of conformance, though conformance was non supposed to convey tenseness. Discontentment with the work modus operandi, Babbitt would wish for one time the genius of romantic love, the satisfaction of holding left a grade on the metropolis, and a Lashkar-e-Taiba up on his changeless warring with rivals. So tired is Babbitt, that make up ones minding what suit to have on is an wash uping job with many nuances # 8221 ; ( Light 81 ) . All American # 8217 ; s experience that they are trailing the, slightly elusive, American dream. Lewis wanted to work the all right line between the American dream and world ( Love 43 ) . That the streets are paved with gold is non the inquiry. The difference is over the definition of gold. Babbitt thinks that he has achieved the American dream, this is why he is so bewildered at his discontentedness with his life. Babbitt feels that he # 8217 ; s # 8220 ; done everything he ought to make # 8221 ; , as he bemoans to his friend # 8220 ; I supported m y household, and got a good house and a six cylinder auto, and built up a nice small concern, and I haven # 8217 ; t any frailties specially except smoking # 8230 ; I belong to the church, and play plenty golf to maintain in spare, and I merely associate with good decent chaps. And yet even so I don # 8217 ; t know if I am wholly satisfied. Babbitt has lived harmonizing to his dreams inspiration, but they are dreams which leave the dreamer restless and betrayed # 8221 ; ( Light 81 ) . Babbitt represents America # 8217 ; s revelation to the universe that the US is # 8220 ; crass, mercenary, self-satisfied and chauvinistic # 8221 ; . Lewis banked on the fact that on the sly, society could non digest what it had made itself ( Schorer 331 ) . Lewis wanted to state America the truth. He had the backbones to state America # 8220 ; to which stupid, and eventually annihilating, societal damnation, we were floating to # 8221 ; ( Schorer 334 ) . This type of sarcasm about in-between category topics, for in-between category readers neer took off in America ( Love 39 ) . Lewis made it go on, why? Lewis wanted to utilize the subliminal to its full extent. Lewis knew that by making a humourous, realistic character, like Babbitt, people would subconsciously place themselves with Babbitt. As a consequence people would hopefully alter so as to avoid Babbitt # 8217 ; s frustrating destiny. This was Lewis # 8217 ; s end. The type of sarcasm which Lewis wanted to use was # 8220 ; sarcasm which operates in the considerable and deplorable gulf between how things are and how they should be. What drove Lewis # 8217 ; s write was the annoying realisation of how human topics had fallen off from their rightful duties and potencies # 8221 ; ( Love 43 ) . Lewis possessed a know aparting moral sense, or a perceptual experience of a momentous ideal. To middle category America this sarcasm was indispensable. Lewis felt it important that their beliefs no longer be funneled to th em by the demands of society ( Love 41 ) . Lewis # 8217 ; s exploited this thought to the fullest in Babbitt. # 8220 ; Lewis # 8217 ; s inclination to travel rapidly from one subject to another, covering the full scope of in-between category concern life in America, from its ugliest facet # 8211 ; its racial, cultural, and spiritual dogmatism, and its cutthroat commercial patterns # 8211 ; to its basically harmless, simply cockamamie chases of recreation and pleasance. The consequence is to propose a universe non so much of concern as of hum # 8211 ; a crowded scene in frenetic gesture, yet without any existent motion toward any specific and worthwhile ends # 8221 ; ( Love 44 ) . Lewis wanted to capture the lip service of society. In Huckelberry Finn Twain wanted to demo Miss Watson lip service in having a slave and at the same clip being a Christian. Lewis tried to indicate out similar lip services, where society is to fault for the incompatibilities. Take for illustration B abbitt # 8217 ; s friend Chum Frink. # 8220 ; he enjoys liquor so cheers prohibition # 8221 ; ( 42 ) . Lewis wanted to utilize sarcasm by ego exposure. This is accomplished # 8220 ; when characters, like Frink, give their ignorance off # 8221 ; for all to see ( Light 78 ) . Lewis was seeking to capture the sad worlds of life. Lewis wanted to pin down his immolation into painting his ain portrayal of world ; # 8220 ; and when the last garment, which covers his nudity is stripped away, the torch explodes and the camera has caught the victim in every characteristic of his mean, and asinine world # 8221 ; ( Love 15 ) . Lewis wanted Babbitt to come alive. He wanted to portray the universe of the small man of affairs, who conforms to society in every which manner. Main Street was Lewis # 8217 ; s first effort at carry throughing this, but by composing Babbitt he declared himself a failure. # 8220 ; In Main Street heat and excitement were foreign to the hr, Babbitt, nevertheless, has that something existent, which makes it a work of art ; and it is signed in every line with the alone personality # 8221 ; , and more significantly the desires, # 8220 ; of the author # 8221 ; ( West 23 ) . Lewis wanted Babbitt to come alive, and to confront life the manner the conformists of society beseeched him to. Lewis wanted Babbitt to be the typical cat following door. Babbitt has become # 8220 ; the heroic poem of our roar old ages, and it remains today as the major certification, in literature, of American concern civilization # 8221 ; ( Schorer 327 ) . It seems as if Lewis succeeded in his end, he had made the universe aware of its monumental jobs. Lewis was the first American author to have the Nobel award in literature ( 1930 ) , which he received for his attempts in Babbitt ( Love 16 ) . Upton Sinclair, a major figure in literature, crowned Babbitt as # 8221 ; the best novel of all clip # 8221 ; ( Love 16 ) . # 8220 ; Babbitt became portion of our lives whic h before we had non recognized # 8221 ; ( Love 18 ) . Along with Babbitt # 8217 ; s gaudery and ginger he was besides, really humanly, hapless. How could it hold perchance failed? Commercially it did non. Babbitt became the greatest international success in printing history ( Schorer 331 ) . It seems as if Lewis got precisely what he wanted. His book was widely read and people accepted its searching comments as truths. Lewis had in fact, trusting to get the better of the restrictions of imitation, consciously made Babbitt seem existent, # 8221 ; yet before the novel was finished, Lewis had to profess something to its inevitable tone, and was looking towards his following book where he would seek once more # 8221 ; ( Light 77 ) . Why was this the instance? Hadn # 8217 ; t Lewis succeeded? The reply is the footing for the book itself. Lewis # 8217 ; s love for the universe was so great that there was ever something he could inquire society to work on, so hence his work was neer complete. He died, tragically, without of all time recognizing that in a perfect universe there is no topographic point for people. Ralph Waldo Emerson in Self Reliance had some of the same thoughts as Sinclair Lewis. To Emerson the expostulation to conforming is that # 8220 ; it loses your clip and film over the feeling of your character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead bible society, ballot with a great party either for the authorities or against it, distribute your tabular array like base housekeepers # 8211 ; under all these screens I have trouble to observe the precise adult male [ that ] you are # 8221 ; ( Emerson 411 ) . This was Lewis # 8217 ; s Babbitt, as if Lewis wrote it himself. Lewis was against all that was standardized, he felt that it abolished humanity. The small white house with a bluish door, and a walk in cupboard was Lewis # 8217 ; s Nemesis. # 8220 ; he was the first to demo us into what societal damnation we were floating. The inquir y is # 8211 ; have we landed? ! ? # 8221 ; ( Schorer 334 ) . Emerson, Ralph Waldo. # 8220 ; Self Reliance. # 8221 ; The American Tradition In Literature # 8211 ; Sixth Edition. ED. George Perkins, Sculley Bradley, Richmond Croom Beatty, E. Hudson Long. New York: Random House, 1985. 410. Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt. New York: Harcourt, Brace A ; World, INC. , 1922Light, Martin. The Quixotic Vision of Sinclair Lewis. West Lafayette Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1975, 73 # 8211 ; 83. Love, Glen A. Babbitt An American Life ; Twaynes Masterwork Studies. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993. Lovett, Robert Moss. # 8220 ; An Interpreter of American Life. # 8221 ; Sinclair Lewis. Ed. Mark Schorer. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, INC. , 1962. 32-35. Mencken, H.L. # 8220 ; Portrait of an American Citizen. # 8221 ; Sinclair Lewis. Ed. Mark Schorer. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, INC. , 1962. 20-22. Schorer, Mark. # 8220 ; Afterword # 8221 ; Babbitt. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanavich, INC. , 1992. 327-334. John websters Universal Una bridged Dictionary. New York: Barnes A ; Baronial Books,1992. 106. West, Rebecca. # 8220 ; Babbitt. # 8221 ; Sinclair Lewis. Ed. Mark Schorer. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, INC. , 1962. 23-26.