Babbitt....Conformity

In the business-centered city of Zenith, George F. Babbitt is, "to the eye, the perfect office-going executive": he is a successful and wealthy realtor, has a nice suburban house, and owns everything that is modern and expensive. Yet, he is unsatisfied with his life because his business, religion, friendships, and golf alike are all "incredibly mechanical." Every day, he reads the newspaper editorials and listens to his neighbors just to parrot their ideas and appear intelligent, as long as it sounds conservative. Babbitt's only true friend, Paul Riesling, is the one person he can be honest with. Like most people in Zenith, Paul has sacrificed his personal dreams for commercial success, giving up the violin for a roofing business. Riesling is also troubled like Babbitt and he is unhappily married. Blaming his problems on his bitter wife, he shoots her in the shoulder and is put in prison. Babbitt now has no real friends and feels that he faces "a world which, without Paul, [is] meaningless." While returning from an unsuccessful vacation meant to find happiness, Babbitt talks with Seneca Doane, a man with liberal views. Without anyone else telling him what to think, Babbitt begins to agree with Doane's liberal ideas. Upon arriving back in Zenith, Babbitt begins openly expressing his newly found liberal ideas, meeting opposition. For showing his new beliefs, Babbitt is rejected and becomes a social outcast from his group of "friends," being ignored in both friendship and business. Babbitt is pressured by many people to return to his old conservative and conforming self, but he refuses. In order to keep his liberal views, he must continue to be unrecognized and rejected, but can he? Does he have the strength to withstand the demands for conformity? If he is like the majority of people in Zenith, he will not. Sinclair Lewis has the ability to capture the essence of Zenith businessmen with their words. His use of slang words such as "frinstance"