In the Sinclair Lewis novel, Babbitt, the main character is a man who lives his whole life under the presumption that the only way to be happy is to follow society. Daily, he walks the path of right-wing social law, believing that only wealth can bring him happiness. Babbitt eventually makes an effort to change his ways, but is too deep into the system to pull himself from the lifeless abyss of proper society.
George F. Babbitt lives in a society that prohibits creativity at the cost of wealth, but grants only supposed happiness. Every block that has made up his life has been affected by the pressure of conformity. Success in relationships, family, social life, and business are all based on his ability to conform to Zenith's preset standards of thought and action. Everything that Babbitt did was a reflection of what society told him to be. Also, the only time that Babbitt provided an opinion different from the other citizens of Zenith was when he took the side of the union strikers. His opinion was swiftly shot down by his friends and colleagues, and as he leaves the meeting he overhears his friends beginning to question his objections to social law.
At first Babbitt is portrayed as a person happy with conforming to the standards set for him by the rest of society. He is repeatedly found talking about modern technology, material possessions and social status as ways to measure the worth of an individual. The first of there occurrences comes early in the book when Babbitt boasts about his luxurious alarm clock. "It was the best of nationally advertised and quantitatively produced alarm-clocks, with all modern attachments, including cathedral
chime, intermittent alarm, and a phosphorescent dial. Babbitt was proud of
being awakened by such a rich device."
All of Babbitt's actions and thoughts are controlled by the standards of those around him. He does not act because it was what he is inspired to do, he acts for the acceptance of the rest of Zenith. Babbitt does everything expected of him by others because he hopes to improve his social status. By doing this, he moves quickly up the rungs on the ladder of success, feeling hollow happiness as he accomplishes the social goal of getting richer and richer.
However, Babbitt soon realizes that his rising hierarchal status, (along with his widening wallet,) aren't his honest aspirations. He begins to feel a yearning for his real dreams, such as nature and adventure.
At the beginnings of the 1900s, some leading magazines in the U.S have already started to exhibit choking reports about unjust monopolistic practices, rampant political corruption, and many other offenses; which helped their sales to soar. In this context, in 1904, The Appeal to Reason, a leading socialist weekly, offered Sinclair $500 to prepare an exposé on the meatpacking industry (Cherny). To accomplish his mission, Sinclair headed to Chicago, the center of the meatpacking industry, and started an investigation as he declared“ I spent seven weeks in Packingtown studying conditions there, and I verified every smallest detail, so that as a picture of social conditions the book is as exact as a government report” (Sinclair, The Industrial Republic 115-16). To get a direct knowledge of the work, he sneaked into the packing plants as a pretended worker. He toured the streets of Packingtown, the area near the stockyards where the workers live. He approached people, from different walks of life, who could provide useful information about conditions in Packingtown. At the end of seven weeks, he returned home to New Jersey, shut himself up in a small cabin, wrote for nine months, and produced The Jungle (Cherny).
Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt portrayed a man bent on following his political party; his actions seemingly followed that religiously, and today's version of the Republican Party is proof that we are not too far off from Lewis' version, despite the expanse of time. George Babbitt, the main character in Lewis' novel, viewed the world in the eyes of a businessman. He saw immigrants as a waste to society, business and the means to survive, and the ability to own the latest and greatest inventions as top priorities in his life. One must, in the 1920s and well as in today's world, set themselves in a political affiliation, generally one that describes the person and how he is. To Babbitt, the Republican Party held the most appeal, arguing that even the contents of his pockets "were of eternal importance, like baseball and the Republican Party" (Lewis 9).
Throughout the novel Grendel by John Gardner, the main character Grendel is searching for answers about life, most importantly the meaning of life. He is confused with how he wants to view life and searches for some reason to why he exists. He turned too many for these answers; his mother, man, and the dragon, but no one could provide Grendel the answer he so desperately sought, all just pushed him to the idea of existentialism.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair exemplifies a muckraking style in its often gory depictions of life in a meat packing factory, Sinclair writes of how the meat packing industry exploits its workers, many of whom are uneducated and poor in the same way a capitalist government exploits it's working class. Sinclair uses Symbolism in terms of physical objects, Objects that serve a metaphorical purpose, and oppressive tone, to persuade the reader that Capitalism leads to the declination and corruption of America and that the only way to remedy this is socialistic government.
“The Jungle” is a sociological novel, the work of public and literature heritage. The story is about the hard destiny of Lithuanian immigrants who seek for freedom and justice in America that become the hostages of merciless socialistic labor system in the United States. The cruel story takes place in the naturalistic scenes of gloomy slaughterhouses of Chicago, where, in monstrous miasmatic of demoralization, the hero flay the dead tubercular carcasses. With the help of grandiose rhetorical techniques like metaphor, parallelism, simile, key words, amplification and outstanding verbal approaches, Upton Sinclair won the hearts of thousands people due to his heartfelt language of explicit naturalism and showed the oppressing atmosphere of socialism.
The men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were just ordinary men, from a variety of backgrounds, education, and age. It would appear that they were not selected by any force other than random chance. Their backgrounds and upbringing, however, did little to prepare these men for the horrors they were to witness and participate in.
The settings in The Great Gatsby reflect the socio-historic context of the novel and the nature of different characters’ pursuits of happiness. Gatsby’s residence defines him as a member of the nouveaux riches as its description makes his property seem tastelessly new, as suggested by the ‘thin beard of raw ivy’ that unattractively exposes efforts to appear aged, and characterless as a ‘factual imitation of some Hôtel-de-Ville in Normandy’ implies it is a plain copy with no creativity expended for its creation. The interior of Gatsby’s home ...
Grendel lives in a dark and gruesome underground cave with his mother and dozens of cold, unmoving creatures. He is very curious and, in his early years, finds a way to escape this terrible place and enter the world. Every night he wanders outside his cave, exploring the land around him. One night, he gets trapped in a tree. A band of human beings led by King Hrothgar approaches and, after some hesitation, attacks Grendel. They close in for the kill, but Grendel's mother arrives just in time to save him.
Sinclair Lewis’s novel, Babbitt, details the life of the titular character, Babbitt, who finds discontent with his life but is unable to change it. Lewis uses this character to satirize 1920s the American lifestyle by highlighting the hypocrisy and hollowness of Babbitt’s life.
It is stated that though Babbitt paraded his social status, he contributed little to the benefit of society. “Babbitt was forty-six years old now, in April, 1920, and he made nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay”(page 2). He took pride in his social status, until he was snubbed by his more successful acquaintances, the McKelveys. He then questions his life and beliefs, because in comparing himself to his "betters", he wonders whether he is actually as happy or content as he lead others to believe. Thus, when his once successful friend, Paul, has an affair and later murders his wife, Babbitt sees this as the ultimate proof that success without satisfaction is meaningless. However, rather than seeking true happiness, Babbitt begins to seek satisfaction in temporal pleasures. He abandons his professional code of ethics and has an affair, and trades in his conservative beliefs in favor of a more liberal mindset. Consequently, Babbitt alienates most of his friends, and his reputation declines. However, Babbitt goes under a change of perspective after his wife Myra falls
The poem America by Claude McKay is on its surface a poem combining what America should be and what this country stands for, with what it actually is, and the attitude it projects amongst the people. Mckay uses the form of poetry to express how he, as a Jamaican immigrant, feels about America. He characterizes the bittersweet relationship between striving for the American dream, and being denied that dream due to racism. While the America we are meant to see is a beautiful land of opportunity, McKay see’s as an ugly, flawed, system that crushes the hopes and dreams of the African-American people.
The most powerful motivation is greed and it only can be stopped with proper mediators but they must not become too excited and act foolish or their cause will become too big to consume. Great ideas for good causes take time, and warnings must be kept in mind, no matter how much the plan is needed to happen. Even though the world of a dystopian society is absolutely horrible, no government is ever overthrown easily. The exempt people of such societies, who call themselves leaders, lead lives of too much decadence as they can as they choose the lives of others. In “Burning Bright,” part three of Fahrenheit 451, Beatty says, “Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now that he’s burnt his damn wings, he wonders why.” This allusion demonstrates that Guy Montag and Kurt Vonnegut’s title character “Harrison Bergeron” both suffered like Icarus because they failed to heed warnings.
...er and money are so powerful they can control someone. People criticize others who are lower than them but they don’t realize they were once in the bottom also. In the roaring 20’s Fitzgerald shows how the American Dream has deteriorated. The American Dream originally was about bettering yourself, discovery, and finding happiness. This changed for Gatsby instead he wanted money and to be involved in social circles he did not belong in.
Deteriorating moralities and optimistic beliefs of overnight wealth replaced strict traditional views on religion, family structure, and work ethics. In an era of such high optimism, the pioneering spirit of the American Dream was revitalized. The nouveaux riches often clashed with the established wealth, as evident throughout F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald’s narrator, Nick Carraway, suddenly finds himself submerged in the paper-thin morals, and shallow values of upper-class New York after migrating from the Western interior. Throughout the novel, Nick is highly cynical of American society. Thus, The Great Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s means of criticizing the worsening family structure of American society, the newfound materialistic lifestyles of Americans, an American society governed by corruption, and ultimately, the paradox of the American Dream.
F.Scott Fitzgerald 's 'The Great Gatsby ' display what our society call the American Dream of a vulnerable gain of money, and fabricated fantasy Each main character in the novel leads a binary life, one in which they appear successful, and thus joyful, and one where the financial success is inappreciable, and yet they are happy.