Book Review — Main Street (Sinclair Lewis)
Published in 1920, Main Street is another of Sinclair Lewis’s satire on the town life of American society and mentality. Sinclair Lewis describes his characters vividly with realist prose, in both his works including Babbit and Main Street. Having read both, I’d say that Babbit flows more naturally through rapid sequences of events. Yet, Main Street is not a book the I enjoyed from the start. The main character’s inner struggles, unsuccessful endeavors, and surrenders from the village’s mentality made the story’s opening tedious and humdrum. Despite the slow starting rhythm, we relate more with Carol’s struggles gradually, as Sinclair Lewis’s realist prose brings out our sympathy and identification from our present lives.
The story starts with Carol’s idealisms of transforming Gopher Prairie, and I see four main stages of her “being transformed” by the town:
1. Curiosity and bold idealisms of the expectant youth: We sometimes look back at those early days longingly when we started out — bold and unafraid, free of excessive worries. Sinclair Lewis captured Carol’s youthful spirit visually, with vivid descriptions. “She lifted her arms, she leaned back against the wind, her skirt dipped and flared, a lock blew wild. A girl on a hilltop; credulous, plastic, young; drinking the air as she longed to drink life. The eternal aching comedy of expectant youth.” Carol glowed with self-confidence and inner-calm in her early days. “She retained a willingness to be different from brisk efficient book-ignoring people; an instinct to observe and wonder at their bustle.” At this stage, she did not yet know the immense ability of the world to be casually cruel and proudly dull, but if she should never learn about those dismaying powers, her eyes would never become sullen or rheumily amorous. She was a girl with ambitions — to transform a county; she was not in love — not often nor ever long at a time; she would not settle down — she would earn her living.
2. Cultural Clash and spiritual struggles: As Carol settled into Gopher Prairie and married life, she suffocated under its weight of spiritual discomfort and the aimlessness of life. She had her first impression of Main Street. “When she walked for 32 minutes and completely covered the town, she stood at the corner of Main Street and despaired. The town was too small to absorb her. She realized the vastness and emptiness of the land.” She found herself changed, too — She was startled to find that she was using the word “escape”. Then, as she had her first baby, three years passed like one curt paragraph, and she cased to find anything interesting save her baby.
3. Spiritual defeats and transformation: Carol’s impression of Main Street evolved — she lost the despair of its ugliness. Things seem to change proportions, as she started appreciating the homely ease of village life. She started to appreciate the security, familiarity, and community of Gopher Prairie. “Her life had changed, even before Hugh (the baby) appeared. She looked forward to the next bridge of the Jolly Seventeen (whom she resented in the past with their societal pressures), and the security of whispering and gossiping.” She was part of the town.
4. Self-resolution and conformity: Carol had her own adventures of coming of age — venturing into the city with independent employment, finding solace in her youthful lover, and travelling with her husband Kennicott again. She returned to Gopher Prairie with a newfound appreciation and a better self-understanding. “The prairie was no longer empty land in the sun-glare; it was the living tawny beast which she had fought and made beautiful by fighting; and in the village streets were shadows of her desires and the sound of her marching and the seeds of mystery and greatness.”
Personal Reflections
Conformity to traditions and standards
The main satire of the book is a rural town’s narrow-mindedness and its conformity to preset standards. Dwellers on Main Street adhere to a strict societal standards and tradition, in exchange for recognition, respect, and friendship. Carol’s venture into the city broadened her horizons of individuality and freedom, but not exactly what she yearned for — she felt transparent without individuals caring about who she was and what she did. But she did gain perspective and viewed Main Street in a different light. “The thing she gained in Washington was not information about office-systems and labor unions but renewed courage, that amiable contempt called poise. Her glimpse of tasks involving millions of people and a score of nations reduced Main Street from bloated importance to its actual pettiness.”
A story with inconclusive resolutions
After ventures to the city, she’s back to Gopher Prairie, with renewed perspective and a growing appreciation of its people, the community, and wholesomeness of family life. Did she embark on a trip of enlightenment, only to return with a fuller view, but without actual changes in her daily life? Is the humdrum routine of office life, the liberty of a free Sunday, and new thought religions what a village girl ought to gravitate towards?
Carol’s fondness of her young lover Erik also poses calls questions to the village’s judgements and values. Sinclair Lewis captures the exoticness of Erik in a short but powerful paragraph — Carol’s first impression of Erik. “A strange young man who shon among the cud-chewing citizens like a visitant from the sun-amber curls, low forehead, fine nose, chin smooth but not raw from Sabbath shaving. His lips startled her. […] He wore a brown jersey coat, a delft blue bow, a white silk shirt, white flannel trousers. He suggested the ocean beach, a tennis court, anything but the sub-blistered utility of Main Street.” As a farm boy, Erik is expected to inherit his father’s farm, to plow through his ancestors’ land and pass on the obligation.
Eric was Carol’s spiritual enlightenment and escape back to her youthful self, but she suffocated under Gopher Prairie’s judgements. In a passionate escape there must be not only a place from which to flee but a place to which to flee. She had known that she would gladly leave Gopher Prairie, leave Main Street and all that it signified, but she had had no destination. She had one now. That destination was not Erik Valborg and the love of Erik. She continued to assure herself that she wasn’t in love with him but merely “fond of him and interested in his success.” Yet in him she had discovered both her need of youth and the fact that youth would welcome her. It was not Erik to whom she must escape, but universal and joyous youth, in class-rooms, in studios, in offices, in meetings to protest against Things in General. . . . But universal and joyous youth rather resembled Erik.
Is it “allowed” for Erik to seek for employment in a big city, to dedicate his youth in the factory’s sewing machines, with his hope to become a dressmaker? Is it “allowed” for Carol to yearn for beauty, literature, profound friendships, and imagination? “She told herself that she was the daughter of a judge, the wife of a doctor, and that she did not care to know a capering tailor.” Answers have changed in the past century, but for a few questions, we are still not sure.
The path towards maturity
I read “Le Petit Prince” and “Main Street” at the same time. Interestingly, the authors seem to deliver similar messages of the passage of time and the marks left on our life. Along with societal expectations, personal endeavors, and survival of setbacks, we become more “experienced”. More cautious, more conservative, more knowledgeable; at the same time less imaginative, less curious, and less personable. Le Petit Prince observes the adult world’s absurdities, and we see huge contrasts between “les grandes personnes” et “le Petit Prince” — in his curiosity, aspirations, and questioning of how the world evolves. Changes due to our personal circumstances and stages of life are inevitable — we will never remain the same. But are you finding yourself, after a mélange of perspectives and experiences? Are you becoming a better version of yourself?
Is society a medium of transforming into people into homogeneous and impersonal machines — agreeing to consensus, staying careful of not crossing the line, and keeping thoughts to yourself…finally losing your own thoughts? When Carol first met Erik, she observed that “there was a dangerous hint of personality in him.” That line struck me like a lightning bolt. As we enter a new environment — transitions into university, to the workplace, or to another country, we expose less of ourselves for protection. That is because we are not provided “safe spaces” to express ourselves freely. During the first year of work, I tended to be “friendly and professional” — keeping my distance and hiding my personality. With time, I found that the greatest support and friendships along the way are formed through candid and authentic conversations, of showing personality. Blessed with C****’s mentorship and his values, I started to appreciate personable interactions in another light. “When you touch an individual in one way, they will remember it, and pay it forward.”
