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After his success as a speaker, Babbitt had hoped to be invited to join the Union and the Tonawanda country clubs, but no invitations arrived. Now he pins his hopes for social advancement on his upcoming college reunion.
The reunion is held at the Union Club, which for all its snob appeal is housed in an old and ugly building. Anxious to engage in some social climbing, Babbitt drags along his friend Paul Riesling, as he moves through the crowd toward Charles McKelvey.
McKelvey is what Babbitt dreams of being: rich, powerful, and intimidating, even if not overly honest. Part of a rising American aristocracy, he\'s able to hobnob with the wealthy of Europe, men like Sir Gerald Doak, the British iron millionaire.
Babbitt is flattered when McKelvey compliments his speeches, and during dinner he makes his move: he invites McKelvey and his wife for an evening at the Babbitt house. But only when Babbitt hints that he possesses inside information about real estate does McKelvey accept. This is the way business and \"friendship\" operate in Zenith.
Plans for the important dinner are made. Mrs. Babbitt invites only her most proper friends, and she forces Babbitt into a suit. Yet despite the preparations, the dinner is a disaster. No one has anything to say to anyone else, and the McKelveys invent an excuse to leave early. That night Babbitt hears his wife weeping at their social failure--a failure that is confirmed when they aren\'t invited to any of the McKelveys\' parties for Sir Gerald Doak.
The Babbitts, though, are no less snobbish than the McKelveys, as we see when they attend a dinner party given by Ed Overbrook--an unsuccessful college classmate who admires Babbitt as fervently as Babbitt admires Charles McKelvey. The second dinner exactly parallels the first. (Some critics have called the parallel too neat, an instance where Lewis makes his satire too obvious and heavy-handed.) The Overbrooks seem as shabby and dull to the Babbitts as the Babbitts seemed to the McKelveys, and this evening is also a social disaster.
NOTE: CLASS DIVISION IN ZENITH These two failed dinner parties are reminders that Zenith is hypocritical in calling itself a democracy, where money and class don\'t matter. How much do they matter in America today?
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