Babbitt

Sinclair Lewis

Jan 1922 · Grosset & Dunlap

About this ebook

The story of George F. Babbitt, booster, one hundred percenter, a hustling, prosperous real-estate broker in an average American city.

Ratings and reviews

Great use for classrooms in high school literature or history classes. Babbitt tells the story of George Babbitt, a generic real estate businessman who is extremely materialistic and lives a monotonous, social climbing life. He is never pleased with what he has and always wants more. He lives in Zenith, a fictional town that only cares about conformity. From the outside looking in, he has financial security, a family, and all the current technology to make his life simpler. He starts to become dissatisfied with the so called, “American Dream. He starts rebelling against Zenith and the values the town has instilled in him. He starts an affair, stays out late drinking and partying (in a time of Prohibition) and his business and personal life suffer. Realizing this rebellion has hurt people he once cared deeply about; he ends his affair and returns home to take care of his wife when she becomes ill. At the end of the novel he has given up his rebellious ways, but he tells his son not to let the same fate take him; to ask questions, make his own decisions, and do what he pleases. The reader is left with an important message to make your own fate, and don’t conform and life a life others expect you to.

I just started reading it. The writing is great and easily readable. I'm not sure I like the character Mr. Babbitt yet. He seems to be very shallow and determinef to follow the conventions of the middle class society of his era.

The book is still entertaining and evocative of its times as it ever was. Sadly, the speech patterns and colloquialisms of those days as well as the many contemporaneous references have become irrelevant or actually incomprehensible for younger readers.