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When Babbitt leaves his office, we get a close-up view of the downtown Zenith we saw earlier at a distance. The city represents Lewis\'s view of the new, modern, industrial America. Everything is standardized, bigness is more important than beauty, and a person\'s worth comes from the material objects he possesses--in Babbitt\'s case, expensive ties and an electric cigar lighter (for the cigars he has given up smoking).
Babbitt enters the Zenith Athletic Club, which like so many things in Zenith is an example of false advertising: \"It isn\'t exactly athletic, and it isn\'t exactly a club.\" It\'s a gathering place for businessmen like Babbitt who are prosperous but not members of the city\'s true elite. That elite belongs to the more exclusive Union Club.
NOTE: CLASS DIVISION Lewis\'s discussion of the Athletic and Union Clubs picks up a theme that we encountered earlier in Babbitt and that we\'ll encounter again. Zenith (and by extension, all of America, as Lewis views it) calls itself a democratic and egalitarian society, where everyone from washerwoman to bank president is equal. But in fact the divisions between classes are almost impossible to cross, and Babbitt and his family and friends are always conscious of their social status, always anxious to improve it.
Babbitt greets his friends, Vergil Gunch, Sidney Finkelstein, and Professor Joseph K. Pumphrey (whose position as instructor of Business English tells us what kind of education is valued in Zenith). Babbitt talks with special enthusiasm to Gunch, for the loud, jolly coal dealer represents everything that Babbitt himself wants to be. As we might expect, Babbitt\'s conversation with this important man is no more interesting or original than are most conversations in Zenith.
Paul Riesling enters the club, and Babbitt breaks away from Gunch and Finkelstein (who with Babbitt and others form The Roughnecks, a club within the Athletic Club) to share a table with his friend. Such privacy is considered suspicious by the other club members, but as soon as Babbitt and Paul start to talk, it\'s clear why they value it. Paul is the only man to whom Babbitt can confess his discontent. All his life, Babbitt says, he\'s done the things society told him to do--supported a family, bought a nice house. Yet he isn\'t satisfied. We see now that Babbitt can be a more sensitive man than he usually appears.
Paul understands. He had wanted to be a violinist and now he\'s manufacturing roofing and is married to a wife, Zilla, he\'d like to divorce. He\'s sick of cutthroat, competitive Zenith.
Now Riesling has gone too far. To criticize business practices is to talk like a socialist--and Babbitt won\'t stand for that even from his best friend. Riesling backs down, but still he says that of all the citizens in Zenith, only one-third are truly satisfied with their lives. Another third are restless but unwilling to admit it. A final third are, like Riesling himself, openly miserable.
Riesling\'s description of Zenith may seem at first an overly bleak one. But you might consider how you\'d describe life in your town or city. How many people where you live would you describe as happy? Restless? Openly miserable? Who, or what, is to blame for their unhappiness?
NOTE: PAUL RIESLING Lewis uses Paul Riesling to voice many of his own thoughts about Zenith (and its actual counterparts). Like Lewis, Paul sees Zenith\'s shallowness and hypocrisy and itches to rebel against them. Lewis rebelled, of course, by writing this novel. We\'ll see later what form Riesling\'s rebellion takes. As for Babbitt, if Riesling obviously belongs to the third, miserable category of the Zenith population, Babbitt belongs to the second--restless, but as yet unwilling to admit it.
Riesling comes up with a plan for escape. The two men will go camping in Maine without their wives. The trip will surprise their conventional friends--for in Zenith respectable businessmen can\'t even change hobbies without causing talk--but that\'s part of its appeal.
NOTE: FORESHADOWING Babbitt is a loosely structured novel, and Lewis often pays more attention to examining--and getting us to laugh at--the various parts of Babbitt\'s world than he does to moving a plot forward. Still, one technique he does use to tie his story together is foreshadowing, the use of small events to hint at more important events that will occur later. Paul is angry with his life in Zenith and with his wife, Zilla. Babbitt in turn vows that if Paul ever needs him, he\'ll chuck his other friendships to come to Paul\'s aid. Can you predict now what might come of these hints and promises?
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