Elmer Gantry (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Sinclair Lewis
- First Published: 1927
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism, Satire, Novel
- Subjects: Sex or sexuality, Religion, Midwest, 1910’s, 1920’s, Ministry or ministers, Christianity, Greed, Moral conditions, Ethics, Preaching, Corruption, Hypocrisy, Fraud, Fundamentalism
- Locales: Midwest (U.S.)
In this novel, Lewis's satire is unrelieved, beginning with his first description of Terwillinger College on the outskirts of Gritzmacher Springs, Kansas, where Elmer (nicknamed Hell-cat) Gantry is wasting his time and his mother's money pretending to get an education.
Elmer meets Judson Roberts, a preacher, and is beginning to consider a career as an evangelical minister when he is pushed into the position of leading a crowd to exhort God. Because his original plan to become a lawyer would have required study, it is easy for him to change his vocational goal, but he needs to...
[The entire page is 939 words long]
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