Dara Fasipe Rollings Honors English 4/25/2012

Sinclair Lewis and The Midwest Sinclair Lewis is one of the greatest American novelists of the 1900s. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His novels are known for their insights and criticism of American society and capitalist values. Among those novels are Gideon Planish, Dodsworth, Main Street, and Babbitt. Main Street and Babbitt were his most renowned novels. The influence of the Midwestern United States region on Sinclair Lewis is shown through the gender roles of women in the 1900s, small town life, and religion in Main Street and Babbitt.

In the Midwestern United States, gender roles in the 1900s were very traditional with the women being responsible for the cooking, cleaning, and care of the children. The men were the head of the household and the provider for the family. If a woman wants to establish financial independence, men discourage the woman from getting it. Societal structures like this have been around for thousands of years. In Sinclair Lewis Main Street Carol challenges these traditional gender roles. Her growing indignation of traditional roles is evident while the men floated on the lake, casting for black bass, the women prepared lunch and yawned. Carol was a little resentful of the manner in which the men assumed that they did not care to fish. (Main Street).

Carol questions the classic scenario of women cook and men play around. Carol stands in opposition to this and doubts the traditional way of life in the Midwest.

Americans in the early 1900s view the Midwest as the center of America's morality, tradition, and values. Sinclair Lewis is influenced by this Midwestern thought; Kennicott describes Gopher Prairie, a small town, as a beautiful place. Kennicott sees it as a place of friendliness, good cheer, and happiness. Carol, throughout the novel begins to see it for what it really is. Carol finds two traditions of the American small town. The first tradition, repeated in scores of magazines every month, is that the American village remains the one sure abode of friendship, honesty, and clean sweet marriageable girls The other tradition is that the significant features of all the villages are whiskers, iron dogs upon lawns, gold bricks, checkers, jars of gilded cat-tails, and shrewd comic old men who are known as "hicks" and who ejaculate "Waal I swan.(Main Street). Carol realizes the latter is a more accurate description of small town life. The women in the small town condemn her ideas for trying to beautify the town, which shows resistance to change. Rather than try to see if what Carol does and says has any truth and/or meaning, they cast her off as a idiot stuck in her own fantasy lands

Christianity was the dominant religion in the Midwest and on a national scale,America. The Midwestern religious influence is seen in Babbit. Christianity is often seen as the religion of faith, forgiveness, and love. In Babbitt, the Christians there are money hungry hypocrites as exemplified in this quote: Rev. Mr. Monday, the Prophet of Punch, has shown that he is the

world's greatest salesman of salvation, and that by efficient organization the overhead of spiritual regeneration may be kept down to an unprecedented rock-bottom basis. He has converted over two hundred thousand lost and priceless souls at an average cost of less than ten dollars a head." Babbitt felt most Christians werent sincere believers. Gender roles, Christianity, and small town life during the 1900s all had a major impact on Sinclair Lewis writings. Through Carol and Babbitt, this is clearly seen.