by James Gilmore
Babbit by Sinclair Lewis is
an all-but-forgotten literary masterpiece which espouses the hollowness of
blind conformism. At the surface, the
novel appears to be about a successful businessman entering (and surviving) a mid-life
crisis. But more accurately, Babbitt is about a man whose identity only
exists by means of his compromising conformity to everyone else. He struggles between being the person everyone
thinks he should be and what he really wants for his own life, although he has
become so entrenched in the conformist society that he cannot escape. In this he discovers that he is weak and
pathetic, a living cliché, a human example of meaningless and futility.
Babbitt is a true character
piece which explores every facet of the completely repressed individual in a
society of demanding conformity. The
text remains engrossing despite constantly straddling the line between thoroughness
and repetitiveness. Unfortunately, reading
the novel can be arduous due to its very slow story development.
Babbitt was internationally successful
at the time it was published while domestically the novel’s brazen but accurate
depictions and accusations of America offended or mystified many readers. Every student of American literature should
study Sinclair’s Babbitt.
Rating: 5 / 5