Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis | Characters, Summary, Analysis

 Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Babbitt is a satirical novel by Sinclair Lewis that was published in the year 1922. It is a contentious novel that satirizes American culture and society, criticizing the folly of middle-class life as well as social pressures towards conformity. The word babbitt refers to a businessman who conforms to prevailing middle-class standards without questioning them. The story satirizes the popular American dream and describes how an individual is forced to conform to the norms.

Characters:

George F. Babbitt is a successful middle-class real estate broker with a wife and three children. Despite his success, he is not satisfied with his life and family. Myra Babbitt is George’s wife, she is matronly, kind, diligent, and uninteresting to almost everyone. She is devoted to her family and tries to please George. She doesn’t even confront him when suspects him of having an extramarital affair. Ted Babbitt is George’s 17-year-old son who is not very bright in his studies. He is a natural mechanic and doesn’t want to pursue higher studies. He elopes with Eunice Littlefield, a neighborhood girl. Tinka Babbitt is George’s 10-year-old daughter, and Verona Babbitt is George’s eldest daughter. She is a filing clerk at the Gruenberg Leather Company offices. She is interested in social work and progressive socialist politics. She marries Kenneth Scott an emerging reporter. Paul Riesling is one of George’s close friends who used to be his classmate and roommate at State University. He wished to be a violinist but ended up being another businessman. He is very resentful of his wife Zella Riesling who is a religious zealot and uses religion as a weapon against him. Paul shoots at her and goes to jail. Tanis Judique is a beautiful middle-aged widow with whom George develops an affair. Seneca Doane is a progressive lawyer who fights the standardization of thought. Extremely liberal socialist, he heads farmer-labor tickets and inspires Babbitt to temporarily turn to political rebellion.

Summary:

George F. Babbitt is a middle-aged man, a highly successful real estate agent who sells houses at rates that exceed what people are actually able to pay for them. He enjoys his social status and is proud of his house at Floral Heights, as it is standardized from the architecture to the atmosphere, which appeals greatly to Babbitt. But Babbitt is profoundly dissatisfied. His family irritates him, and he generally has the sense that his life is empty. He consistently dreams of a young fairy girl with whom he is happy and free, and he notices every pretty woman he sees. He is greedily devoted to his work. He closes a deal by forcing a poor businessman to buy a piece of property at more than twice its value. This gives him a sense of pride, as he pockets his earnings, feeling that he has done a good job.

To celebrate his success, he calls his old friend Paul Riesling, a talented musician who could have been a successful violinist but was forced to get into the tar-roofing business to provide for his wife, Zilla. Zilla is an eccentric woman who antagonizes other people and then wants Paul to fight for her. She continuously demeans Paul as a coward and irreligious. When Paul discusses his issues with Babbitt, he gets sad and suggests that the two should take a vacation to Maine, away from their wives.

Although he finds the trip refreshing, he reverts to his former habits and uneasiness shortly after returning to Zenith. Although he has always been an upstanding and moral citizen, Babbitt desires to break with social convention and marital fidelity. Meanwhile, Paul gets involved in a heated argument with his wife, and in a fit of rage, he shoots at her for which he is jailed for murdering his wife Zilla. Myra calls Babbitt at his office and informs him about the incident. Babbitt gets shocked and goes to meet Paul at the jail. Meanwhile, Myra goes away to meet some relatives along with the three children. Babbitt feels that his world is collapsing around him, triggering him to go off the rails, adopting a more bohemian and free-spirited way of living. His faith in the almighty dollar has been demolished, and in its place, he has a newfound respect for the importance of living a life of freedom and integrity.

As Babbitt is living alone, he decides to enjoy his freedom to its fullest. He begins an affair with Tanis Judique, an interesting and attractive widow, he begins an affair with her and becomes entangled in her group of bohemian friends. He goes out every night while Myra is away, drinking and dancing until dawn and reveling in his freedom. With the influence of the progressive Seneca Doane, he also frightens and disappoints all of his conservative friends at the Boosters' club by supporting liberal politics and labor union strikes. When he is invited by Vergil Gunch to join the Good Citizens' League and to bring down men like Seneca Doane, Babbitt refuses.

Yet, Babbitt becomes even unhappier when his former associates begin to ignore him and his business begins to suffer on account of his politics and his infidelity. Even his relationship with Tanis loses its appeal when she becomes emotionally demanding.

He severs the extramarital relationship and longs to rejoin the ranks of solid, standard citizens. When Myra falls ill with appendicitis, he has both the motivation and the excuse to renounce his uncharacteristically immoral behavior and return to his more familiar and comfortable lifestyle. He joins the Good Citizens' League, repairs damaged business relationships, shows greater affection for his wife, and renews his membership in the Church. While he returns back to his normal Babbitt life, he appreciates the value of freedom he enjoyed when he was alone. His brief rebellion does slightly change his view of the world. Babbitt discovers that his son Ted has secretly married Eunice, the daughter of his neighbor. He offers his approval of the marriage, stating that though he does not agree, he admires Ted for living his life on his own terms.

Critical Analysis:

Babbitt proved to be a controversial yet successful novel by Sinclair Lewis and became a reason for his Nobel prize in literature. H.L. Mencken hugely appreciated Babbitt and said that this novel was a stunning work of literary realism. Mencken called Lewis “an old professor of Babbittry.” According to H. L. Mencken, George F. Babbitt was an archetype of the American city dwellers who touted the virtues of Republicanism, Presbyterianism, and absolute conformity because "it is not what he [Babbitt] feels and aspires that moves him primarily; it is what the folks about him will think of him. His politics is communal politics, mob politics, and herd politics; his religion is a public rite wholly without subjective significance.

However, many other critics found Babbitt as an exaggeration in Lewis's depiction of the American businessman. Edmund Wilson mentioned that as a prose stylist, Lewis's literary “gift is almost entirely for making people nasty” and the characters unbelievable. Many other critics also criticized and dismissed Babbitt as “a monstrous, bawling, unconscionable satire” and said, “Mr. Lewis is the most phenomenally skillful exaggerator in literature today.”

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