Babbitt Historical Accuracy
Babbitt: a person, particularly a business or professional man, who unthinkingly follows conventional middle-class ways (Merriam-Webster). George F. Babbitt of Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis: a 46-year-old American real estate salesman who conformed unthinkingly to prevailing middle-class standards in the Midwestern city of Zenith in the 1920s. While he lived as a successful businessman with all the modern conveniences—including a very nice house and a very nice car—Babbitt was overwhelmingly dissatisfied with his life. In the novel he consistently felt as though he lived a meaningless life and he often envisioned himself happy and free with a young fairy girl. Although usually an upstanding and moral citizen, Babbitt desired to break social convention and matrimonial dependability; his desolation motivated him to change his life drastically. In doing so, Babbitt became even unhappier when his former associates ostracized him and his business began to suffer on account of his actions. Renouncing his uncharacteristically immoral behavior, he returned to his more familiar and simple lifestyle. Still, Babbitt's brief rebellion allowed him to realize the faults in his society—the faults that Sinclair Lewis wished to portray. Throughout Babbitt, Lewis satirically illustrated the materialistic tendencies, social conformity, and lavish hypocrisy of the middle-class in the 1920s. In writing Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis sought to portray the problem of extreme consumerism in the society of the 1920s. Beginning in the exposition of the novel, Babbitt’s world full of materialistic ideals was prevalent as his house was depicted with all the modern conveniences of the time from the living room to the bathroom—vacuum cleaners, electric toasters, porcelain toothbrush holders, electric lamps. Babbitt placed supreme value on mechanical devices (Lewis 73); to him material objects were symbols of splendor and his god was Modern Appliances (Lewis 6). And above his loved appliances that