Sinclair Lewis : Babbitt

With his portrait of George F. Babbitt, the conniving, prosperous real-estate man from Zenith, Sinclair Lewis created one of the ugliest, but most convincing, figures in American fiction—the total conformist. Babbitt’s demons are power in his community and the self-esteem he can only receive from others. In his attempts to reconcile these aspirations, he is loyal to whoever serves his need of the moment: time and again he proves an opportunist in business practice and in domestic affairs. Outwardly he conforms with “zip and zowie,” is a “big booster” before the public eye; inwardly he converges day by day upon the utter emptiness of his soul—too filled with rationalizations and sentimentality to sense his own corruption. Babbitt gives consummate expression to the glibness and irresponsibility of the hardened, professional social climber.

H. G. Wells said of this novel: “I wish I could have written Babbitt.”