Бэббит: Сатира на американскую мечту

Novel by Sinclair Lewis

Babbitt (1922), by Sinclair Lewis, is a satirical novel about American culture and society that critiques the vacuity of middle class life and the social pressure toward conformity. The controversy provoked by Babbitt was influential in the decision to award the Nobel Prize in Literature to Lewis in 1930. The novel has been filmed twice, once as a silent in 1924 and remade as a talkie in 1934. The word Babbitt has entered the English language as a "person and especially a business or professional man who conforms unthinkingly to prevailing middle class standards".

The Smart Sets review of the novel stated, "There is no plot whatever Babbitt simply grows two years older as the tale unfolds." The first seven chapters follow George F. Babbitt's life over the course of a single day. Over breakfast, Babbitt, a successful real estate broker, dotes on his ten year old daughter Tinka, tries to dissuade his 22 year old daughter Verona from her newfound socialist leanings, and encourages his 17 year old son Ted to try harder in school. At the office he dictates letters and discusses real estate advertising with his employees. Gradually, Babbitt realizes his dissatisfaction with "The American Dream", and attempts to quell these feelings by going camping in Maine with his close friend and old college roommate Paul Riesling. Although the trip has its ups and downs, the two men consider it an overall success and leave feeling optimistic about the year ahead. On the day Babbitt gets elected vice president of the Booster's club, he finds out that Paul shot his wife Zilla. Babbitt immediately drives to the jail where Paul is being held, trying to think of ways to help Paul out. Shortly after Paul's arrest, Babbitt's wife and daughter go to visit relatives, leaving Babbitt more or less on his own. Babbitt begins to ask himself what it was he really wanted in life. In time, Babbitt begins to rebel against all of the standards he formerly held: he jumps into liberal politics with famous socialist/"single tax" litigator Seneca Doane, conducts an extramarital affair, goes on various vacations, and cavorts around Zenith with bohemians and flappers. He slowly becomes aware that his forays into nonconformity are not only futile but also destructive of the life and the friends he once loved. When Babbitt's wife falls ill with acute appendicitis, Babbitt rushes home and relinquishes all rebellion. During her long recovery, they rekindle their intimacy and Babbitt reverts to dispassionate conformity. In the final scene, Babbitt discovers that his son Ted has secretly married Eunice, the daughter of his neighbor. He offers his approval of the marriage, stating that though he does not agree, he admires Ted for living his life on his own terms.

Zenith is a fictitious city in the equally fictitious Midwestern state of "Winnemac", adjacent to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. (Babbitt does not mention Winnemac by name, but Lewis's subsequent novel Arrowsmith elaborates on its location.) When Babbitt was published, newspapers in Cincinnati, Duluth, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis each claimed that their city was the model for Zenith. Cincinnati had perhaps the strongest claim, as Lewis had lived there while researching the book. Lewis's own correspondence suggests, however, that Zenith is meant to be any Midwestern city with a population between about 200,000 and 300,000. Lewis was highly critical of the similarities among most American cities, especially when compared to the diverse—and in his view, culturally richer—cities of Europe. Frowning on the interchangeable qualities of American cities, he wrote: "it would not be possible to write a novel which would in every line be equally true to Munich and Florence." While conducting research for Babbitt, Lewis kept detailed journals, in which he drafted long biographies for each of his characters. For his title character this biography even included a detailed genealogy, as well as a list of Babbitt's college courses. Zenith's major names and families are documented in these journals, and many of them emerge again in Lewis's later writings. Zenith's layout is also imagined in careful detail. Lewis drew a series of 18 maps of Zenith and outlying areas, including Babbitt's house, with all its furnishings.

After the social instability and sharp economic depression that followed World War I, many Americans in the 1920s saw business and city growth as foundations for stability. The civic boosters and self made men of the middle class represented particularly American depictions of success, at a time when the promotion of the American identity was crucial in the face of rising fears of Communism. At the same time, growing Midwestern cities, usually associated with mass production and the emergence of a consumer society, were also seen as emblems of American progress. George F. Babbitt, the novel's main character, was described by the 1930 Nobel Prize committee as "the ideal of an American popular hero of the middle class. The relativity of business morals as well as private rules of conduct is for him an accepted article of faith, and without hesitation he considers it God's purpose that man should work, increase his income, and enjoy modern improvements." To his publisher, Lewis wrote: “[George Babbitt] is all of us Americans at 46, prosperous, but worried, wanting — passionately — to seize something more than motor cars and a house before it's too late.” About the novel, Lewis said: “This is the story of the ruler of America” wherein the “tired American Businessman” wielded socioeconomic power not through his exceptionality but rather through militant conformity. Lewis portrayed the American businessman as a man deeply dissatisfied with and privately aware of his shortcomings; he is “the most grievous victim of his own militant dullness” who secretly longed for freedom and romance. Readers who praised the psychological realism of the portrait admitted to regularly encountering Babbitts in real life but also could relate to some of the character's anxieties about conformity and personal fulfillment. Published two years after Lewis's previous novel (Main Street, 1920), the story of George F. Babbitt was much anticipated because each novel presented a portrait of American society wherein “the principal character is brought into conflict with the accepted order of things, sufficiently to illustrate its ruthlessness.”