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Babbitt | Introduction

Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930 on the strength of a number of significant works, including Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), and Babbitt, a satire of the prosperous and conservative business class of 1920s America. Published in New York in 1922, Lewis’s novel follows two years of realtor George F. Babbitt's life, during which Babbitt goes from a lifestyle of complete conformity with the business world, to a period of rebellion including heavy drinking and adultery, and back again to conformity. Throughout this journey, Lewis skillfully highlights the lack of culture in medium-sized American cities during the Prohibition Era, the hypocrisy and corruption of pro-business organizations, and the emptiness in typical businessmen’s lives.

Babbitt is more than an embodiment of what is wrong with America, however. He is a vivid and lifelike character searching for meaning in a life dominated by conformity and loneliness. Babbitt tries to rebel in every way he knows until a conservative organization threatens his business because of his new liberal ideas, at which point he falls back into the lifestyle of what Lewis called a “Standardized Citizen.” In a society that, today, retains many of the basic values that Lewis attacks, Babbitt’s struggle continues to engage readers and expose some of the deepest and most longstanding infirmities of American culture.

Babbitt Summary

Chapters 1–7
The first seven chapters of Babbitt follow one day in the life of its title character, beginning with his process of waking up, talking to his wife, and squabbling at breakfast with his three children. Babbitt starts his car and drives to work, stopping to chat with his neighbor Howard Littlefield, and to pick up a man waiting for the trolley, before he parks outside his real estate office. After a morning of dictation, taking advantage of a grocer looking to expand his shop, and smoking cigars—which he promises himself he will quit—Babbitt meets his best friend Paul Riesling at their club for lunch.

The Athletic Club is chiefly a meeting place for Republican businessmen, and Paul does not fit in there very well, as he talks to Babbitt about his marital problems and complains about their meaningless lifestyle. Babbitt and Paul plan to take a trip to Maine without their wives, and Babbitt goes to pick up his partner and father-in-law Henry T. Thompson. After Babbitt denies his salesman Stanley Graff a raise at the office, Babbitt goes home, has a talk with his son about college, takes a long bath, and falls asleep. Chapter 7 reveals glimpses of the intrigue in other parts of Zenith while Babbitt slumbers.

Chapters 8–14
Time moves forward more rapidly after chapter 7, and the major event of the spring is the Babbitts’ dinner party, for which Babbitt makes bootleg cocktails. The dinner party seems to go well despite its commonplace conversation. But Babbitt is anxious for his guests to leave, and when they do he explodes to his wife, “I’m sick of everything and everybody!” He tells her he wants to go to Maine alone with Paul. The Babbitts visit the Rieslings in their apartment and, after Paul’s wife has a fit and Babbitt yells at her, she agrees to let the men spend some time alone.

Babbit and Paul have a nice and peaceful time fishing, sleeping, and playing poker before their wives come to meet them, although Babbitt is just beginning to feel “calm, and interested in life” when it is time to go home. Chapter 12 describes Babbitt’s leisure time. In chapter 13, Babbitt attends the annual... » Complete Babbitt Summary