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Main Street Essay, Research Paper

Main Street

Sinclair Lewis was a queer boy, always an outsider, lonely. Once he had

become famous, he began to promulgate an official view of his youth that

represents perhaps an adult wish for a inoffensive life that never was. He was

Sinclair Lewis (Hutchisson 8). In the years from 1914 to 1951 Sinclair Lewis, a

flamboyant, driven, self-devouring genius from Sauk Centre, Minnesota, aspired

in twenty two novels to make all America his province. (Hutchisson 9). Although

his star has now waned, he was in his time the best-known and the most

controversial of all writers and through a number of books remarkable for their

satiric bite and for their ambivalent love and hatred of the land and the people he

took as his domain, he helped to make Americans known to themselves and to

the world. Lewis was a descendant of the line of Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau,

Whitman and Twain (Mencken 17). Like them, he railed against the insidious

effects of mass culture and the standardization of manners and ideas. Lewis

dreamed of a better America and in his best novels he turned the light of his

critical gaze upon our most hallowed institutions including the small town. He

became the first American writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for his

works on American life (Mencken 19).

Many of Lewis?s books had relevance to his life growing up. He grew up in

a small town with all the small town qualities and wrote mostly satirically about

them. One of many books that satirize small towns is Main Street. In this novel,

many themes are presented such as the use of satire as an urge to reform, family

life of the period as portrayed in the novel, and World War I and its impact on the

main streets of America. During the period Lewis wrote the novel, World War I

sparked in Europe. During this time the United States was pushed into the war

and many soldiers were needed and drafted by the United States military. This

time affected many young boys and many families. It also brought on a new

feeling of nationalism and patriotism not only in the big cities, but also in the small

towns. Some of these characteristics were satirized by Sinclair Lewis in this

book. Much of what goes on during Sinclair Lewis?s life goes into his books

including his marriages, important dates, and early life. Small towns grew

numerous across the country because during this period many immigrants

traveled west. Small towns are much different than big cities because they have

different values, goals, and morals. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis satirizes the

small town lives and values of Americans through the idealistic view of Carl

Kennicott.

Carol Kennicott?s view of Gopher Prairie, the small town, is skewed

because of her past and her biased way of looking at it. Much has been written

and said about Carol. She is Lewis himself in feminine guise, as he admitted in

1922: ?… [She is] always groping for something she isn?t capable of obtaining,

always dissatisfied…intolerants of her surroundings, yet lacking any clearly

defined vision of what she wants to do or be? (Schorer 273). Carol Kennicott is

more advanced and intellectual than any of the people in the town. She

graduates from Blodgett College, a religious institution, which protects its

students ?from the wickedness of the universities? and censors them from

whatever they do not want them to learn (2). Carol?s first meeting with the

townspeople is a different experience for her. Because of her intelligence and

sophistication, she brings up topics such as labor unions and profit-sharing (42).

The townspeople react differently as one of the conversationalist says, ?All this

profit sharing and welfare work and insurance and old-age pension is simply

poppycock? (43). She is interested in sociology and wishes to participate in

village improvement. (3). ?She did not yet know the immense ability of the world

to be casually cruel and proudly dull, but if she should ever learn those dismaying

powers, her eyes would never become sullen or heavy or rheumily amorous? (2).

This quote demostrates how Carol is put into a bad situation because of her

surroundings and how she has to change the town if she wants to be fulfilled

mentally.

Furthermore, Carol also wants change and she wants to be the one who

makes it in Gopher Prairie where she lives. She goes there and wants to make it

pretty and modern without knowing much about it herself (Dooley 63). She thinks

that because of her education, she has to make change and do something to

fulfill her life. Using the town as a means to do this, is a way that Carol does it.

She also says no to a marriage proposal because she wants to be free from the

chains of marriage (24). Will Kennicott is received with open arms because he

offers her a chance to make that change by residing in a small town with him.

Equally important is that Carol is an orphan since the age of thirteen. Her

childhood is the time period when she learns to be independent which makes her

free. Being given too much freedom is not always a good thing for a young

person: ?…she is impulsive, undiplomatic, and ignorant of complications? (Dooley

62). Because of Carol?s early life and her education, she has a skewed way of

looking at the town and how she wants to change it. Although she wants to

change the small town, she does

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