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Babbitt opens with a view of Zenith, the imaginary midwestern city that is the novel\'s setting. It\'s a sweeping, panoramic view--if this were a movie you could imagine the camera gliding from Zenith\'s business district to its suburbs, moving along the highways and railroad tracks, then zooming in on specific locales: a speeding limousine, an immense new factory.
This opening scene tells you much about what Lewis hopes to do in his novel, and about the way he hopes to do it. Babbitt isn\'t just a portrait of a single man, but of an entire community. You can get a clue to the way Lewis wants you to understand that community by studying his opening paragraphs. The name of the city itself, Zenith, is significant. Zenith means the highest point, the greatest achievement--surely a proud name for a city to have. And Zenith is proud. It isn\'t like older cities whose buildings are citadels devoted to war or cathedrals devoted to religion. Zenith\'s shining towers are devoted to business, devoted to the new.
This new city has art, represented by the limousine full of Little Theater actors speeding home from a rehearsal. But the fact that their rehearsal was a drunken one makes you wonder how seriously this city takes art. (The sorry state of art and literature in Zenith will be a theme repeated throughout Babbitt.)
Zenith also has economic power. Its telegraph wires connect it to Peking and Paris; the goods it manufactures are sold in the Middle East and in Africa. Modern, successful Zenith seems a city fit for giants, Lewis says. We\'ll soon see if those giants really exist.
NOTE: BABBITT AND MODERN AMERICA In his first success, Main Street, published two years before Babbitt, Lewis satirized life in the typical American small town. Now, in the opening paragraphs of Babbitt he announces he\'s going to deal with the post--World War I America that has replaced the small town. This typical new America is urban, industrial, and prosperous. It\'s the America, indeed, that many of us still live in today--a fact you should keep in mind as you read the book.
Lewis takes you inside one Zenith residence, the home of realtor George F. Babbitt. Babbitt is above all a comic, satirical work, and as Lewis begins to describe his main character, his satire grows sharp. Zenith from a distance may look like a city made for giants, but Babbitt is anything but a giant. He\'s pink, plump-faced, well-off--not because he\'s creative but because he knows how to sell houses to people for more than they can pay.
But Babbitt himself isn\'t entirely comfortable with his life. He dreams of a fairy girl who\'ll see him not as a middle-aged realtor but as a heroic youth.
Grumpily Babbitt gets out of bed. He\'s suffering from a hangover, but he\'s also suffering from a deeper discontent. That discontent will become the major theme of the novel. Babbitt looks out at his yard, then goes into his bathroom and shaves. These actions are simple, everyday ones, but through them we see one of Lewis\'s main criticisms of Babbitt\'s life. It\'s a life that puts enormous importance on things. Babbitt\'s alarm clock represents all that is modern, advertised, and expensive. His yard is the neat yard of every successful Zenith businessman. His bathroom is glittering. In all these careful descriptions, Lewis is making fun of America\'s passion for material objects. It\'s a passion that certainly continues today. If Babbitt were set in our time, George Babbitt would probably be the proud owner of a video cassette recorder and a home computer.
If Babbitt is an unlikely hero, the dull and matronly Myra Babbitt is just as unlikely a heroine. Still, you may find it hard not to feel a little sympathy for her this morning. Not only must she apologize to Babbitt for his headache, but she must pretend to listen to his discussion of suits that--it\'s clear--has been repeated every morning for the last twenty years.
Mrs. Babbitt goes down to breakfast and Babbitt lingers upstairs, gazing out at downtown Zenith. His irritation disappears as he sees the city skyline. The tall buildings represent the business prosperity that is his religion, and he hums an inane song--\"Oh by gee, by gosh, by jingo\"--as if it were a hymn.
NOTE: BABBITT The first chapter of Lewis\'s novel gives you a good look at George F. Babbitt and introduces themes you\'ll see repeated later on. One of the things Lewis wants you to do is laugh at this real estate salesman\'s irritable boneheaded ignorance. Babbitt knows little about art and literature. (That\'s shown when he calls William Shakespeare by the name James J.) He and his wife both seem mainly concerned with material possessions and with what other people think of the Babbitts.
Yet there\'s another side to Babbitt, too, and Lewis wants us to sympathize with this side, at least a little. Babbitt\'s dream of the fairy child may seem ridiculously sentimental, but it shows that he hopes for a world better than the one he lives in. His plaid blanket reminds him of a camping trip, planned but never made, that represents a chance for freedom. These are the signs that Babbitt may have some rebellious feelings growing within him. We\'ll see those feelings grow stronger as the book progresses.
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