Deflated Love
David Brede

            Sinclair Lewis, in his many novels and short stories, is a champion of the individual and strict critic of society infringing on the individual.  One of his biggest criticisms comes from the institution.  The institution of marriage can lead to the following of societal standards, leading the couple to live by those standards and not the standards born out of their own love.  While he criticizes the institution of marriage, he praises love.

            Marriage is supposed to be an eternal bond between two people in love, and yet we see in Lewis’ works two people who have a legal contract, but nothing else.  Often these marriages are established out of a social need to be married with no love in them at all.  Stewart Snyder in Lewis’ Main Street, not having been close with Carol at all in college, upon their graduation asks her hand in marriage.  He questions her defiance saying, “What’s better than making a comfy home and bring up some cute kids and knowing nice homey people?” (12)  To Snyder marriage is just the next gradual step in life, much like getting a job might be.  He has no reason to want to marry Carol other than he wants to start a family because that’s what everyone else does.  Marrying out of others wants though does not support the individual.  It is only through the individual that love can arise because love is a feeling.  You can’t force yourself to feel something that is not there.  A marriage like the Kennicott’s and Babbitt’s form after a marriage occurs where love is not the main motive for marrying.  What’s left are marriages that produces children, bills, houses, summer homes, and long vacations, but never love.

            Will Kennicott is no different than Paul Snyder in what he wants from Carol.  He wants her to marry him and return to his small town and have his children.  So reminiscent of Snyder is Kennicott that Carol actually says to herself, “Why was she thinking of Stewart Snyder?” (18)  Kennicott goes about courting Carol almost like someone does trying to sell a piece of property to her holding up photos and saying, “How’d it be to skate there for a couple of hours, or go zinging along on a fast ice-boat, and skip back home for coffee and some hot wienies?” (23)  If it was a relationship based on love the geography of the land would not matter to Carol, as she would follow him anywhere.  In fact, if she truly loved him Kennicott would not have to work to sell her the town, but instead she would willfully go.  Everything Kennicott says to support his case for marriage does not matter because they are all materialistic and do not reflect Kennicott’s inner self, which is what someone would love.

            While Carol, devoid of purpose in her life and beaten by a world that will not accept her feminine charge, gives in and marries Kennicott.  Much can be the said with the marriage of George and Myra Babbitt as well.  Theirs is not a marriage built out of love, but instead one that was built out of a lack of fight, as we see with “Engaged?  It was his first hint of it.  His affection for this brown tender woman thing went cold and fearful, but he could not hurt her, could not abuse her trust.” (86)  Babbitt practically marries out of pity, much like Carol does.

            This puts two couples into situations that are supposed to be built out of love, but instead are built out of society’s want, or pressure, to marry.  This reduces marriage from a state of love into a process like job.

            Myra, for instance, is reduced to the quiet housewife like many others.  Society tells Myra that she needs to be a quiet home maker where she is seen but not heard.  The reader is told that, “Yet she existed only for him and for the children, and she was as sorry, as worried as himself, when he gave up the law and trudged on in a rut of listing real estate.” (87)  Myra no longer puts importance on her individuality, but on the needs to others, catering to them like it is a paying profession. 

As Claire Eby states in her criticism Extremely Married, “If Myra infantilizes her spouse into “Georgie boy,” marriage reduces her into “Mrs. George F. Babbitt.”  She is no longer the individual that one would love, but is instead given a title that defines her by her husband.  Through marriage she has undergone a repression of her individuality.  She is no longer the Myra who may have desires, wishes, dreams, but is instead the woman following the model of a wife laid for her by other people in society.  With this she becomes quiet and when she speaks up to express her disapproval against the correspondence courses Ted and Babbitt are praising they are shocked and disapproving.  While these outbursts show the imprisonment that can be caused by the institution of marriage and the human need for escape, “These signs of Myra’s acuity are irritants, not stimulants, to George.” (Eby)  If Babbitt loved Myra he would love who she is entirely, wanting to here her thoughts and opinions.  Instead though, it is seen as an annoyance that she is not conforming to the social norm.

Kennicott has a similar reaction to Carol’s objection to Gopher Prairies growth campaign as he says, “That’ll be about all from you!  I’ve stood for your sneering at this town, and saying how ugly and dull it is.  I’ve stood for your refusing to appreciate good fellows like Sam.  I’ve even stood for your ridiculing our Watch Gopher Prairie Grow campaign.  But one thing I’m not going to stand: I’m not going to stand my own wife being seditious.” (481-482)  Both Kennicott and Babbitt cannot tolerate their wives not being subservient to them.  It is almost as if the wife becomes a tool to boost the husbands ego, but this is not what marriage, or love, is supposed to be.  To love is to take a person in their fullness.  To accept who they are completely, even accepting their flaws and their disagreements.

While Lewis builds such marriages in Babbitt and Main Street to show the problems with the institution of marriage, he also breaks them apart and prevents them from happening to show the same.

Erik Valborg comes to Gopher Prairie as an unrepressed individual just as Carol did.  However, the reader sees his disillusionment with life grow as Carol’s did and he almost falls into the trap of marriage Mytrle Cass puts forth.  Carol responds to this by saying, “I’m going to be frank and beastly.  Don’t you realize that it isn’t just because her papa needs a bright young man in the mill that Myrtle is amiable to you?  Can’t you understand what she’ll do to you when she has you, when she sends you to church and makes you become respectable?” (421)  Carol, trapped in the prison of marriage is protesting his willing confinement, much as she herself went willing to Kennicott.  The protest here by Carol shows Lewis’ dislike of the institution of marriage because it rips away the person who the individual wants to be and replaces it with a standard put forth by society that one must live up to.  The dangers of that institution are shown by Carol’s own warning not to fall into it.  By Erik’s avoidance of that trap he goes on to fulfill his dreams of being an artist (actor).  However, had he married Myrtle Cass he would have been forced to conform to all the standards of the Gopher Prairie.  Erik does not become bound by place or standard in his avoidance of this institution.

While Erik avoids marriage and what would have most likely come with it, Babbitt’s best friend Paul sees no way out of his marriage then to absolutely destroy it through violence.

It was only in Maine where Babbitt and Paul could be free.  There they had no wives to control them.  The trip only lasted so long and the return built up to Paul’s crime.  At the jail Babbitt, “provokes Paul not only to voice his violent disposition toward his wife, but an even more telling outburst about how the institution of marriage operates.” (Eby)  Paul refers to Babbitt as a moralist, not following personal morals, but the ones set forth by the society of Zenith.  Paul refuses to follow those morals by having an affair, and by shooting his wife.

As Paul is trying to stop Zilla from bleeding he see’s a symbol of their past happiness together as he tells Babbitt, “when I was hunting through the bathroom for some cotton to stop the blood, I ran into a little fuzzy yellow duck we hung on the tree one Christmas, and I remembered she and I’d been awfully happy then.” (253)  It is the institution of marriage that had changed their happiness.  Suddenly they could not act as they were in college as, “Paul was bespelled by Zilla Colbeck, who laughed and danced and drew men after her plump and gaily wagging finger,” because society is now dictating their actions and making their morals.  This is clearly seen upon Babbitt’s return from home when Myra states, “Of course Paul isn’t altogether to blame, but this is what comes of his chasing after other women instead of bearing his cross in a Christian way.” (255)  She essentially blames Paul’s actions on him not following society’s rules.
            Really though it was following what society displayed as the institution of marriage that drove Paul to violence.  Society’s laws ripped the love away from them and replaced it with conformed action.

And while Lewis is always in heavy criticism of this institution and what it does to the two people in it, his criticism all leads to showing of the importance of love.

In Lewis’ Speed we see the importance of love showcased.  J.T. Buffum the motor car racer falls in love with Aurilla Rivers on one his auto repair stops.  She admits to Buff that, “You do things I’ve always wanted to do- sweep across big distances, command men, have power.” (220)  It seems what prevents her from doing this though is the myth of her family past, as she feels, “the Riverses owe it to the world to set an example.” (221)  She wants to be an adventurer but society tells her that she has to live up to a name, up to a standard.

Buffum, obviously begins to fall in love with her as during his own celebration dinner all he can think of is, “Aurilla Rivers would undoubtedly have married the Reverend Mr. Dawson, have gone to Cape Cod on her wedding trip.  She would think only with disgust of large men with grease on their faces.” (223)  He returns to Cape Cod to become knowledgeable of what she value’s most, only to discover that her family history is a myth and she does not know it.

Upon his arrival back in Apogee Buffum has only “fifty- one minutes” before he has to be back on the train.  Her running late from school begins to show of pull of being where society wants him, and being with who her loves.  As the minutes tick he does not run back to the train, but he continues to wait.  His continuing to wait show’s a value of love over everything else.

Upon his asking her to marry she says, “No.  I mustn’t think of it.  It tempts me.  But mother would never consent.” (226)  She references someone else to make her own decision, which in all of Lewis’ works has been the foundation of societal value over the individuals in love.  It is not until Buffum destroys that family myth that Aurilla makes her own decision to go with him.

When Buffum states, “Miss Rivers, would you mind marrying me, somewhere between here and California?” (228), he is saying that wherever he goes he wants his love with him.  Buffum wants his love close, not far away.  In all the marriages in Lewis’ works, while the couples may be living in the same houses as one another, they are always internally far away.

The short story ends with the old supporting the young as Aurilla’s mother prepares a brief case for her.  Lewis’ writings always are accompanied by the tonality of youth.  To give in and conform is a thing of the aged and his protagonists are always trying to break free from that conformity.  With the old supporting the young here we see a want of the old for the young to live and experience.  The older character in the mother here is showing an emphasis on freedom, and of course, love.

Much can be said about the ending of Babbitt and the marriage of Ted to Verona.  While both the Babbitt’s and the Thompson’s dislike the marriage, George Babbitt himself supports it telling Ted privately, “I’ve never done a single thing I’ve wanted to in my whole life!” (378)  He is proud of Ted for not conforming to what society told him was write and wrong and doing what he felt was right.

Babbitt even then comments on what society will tell Ted stating, “Well, those folks in there will try to bully you, and tame you down.  Tell ‘em to go to the devil!  I’ll back you.  Take your factory job, if you want to.  Don’t be scared of the family.  No, nor all of Zenith.  Nor of yourself, the way I’ve been.  Go ahead, old man!  The world is yours!” (378)  Babbitt says here that whatever society tells him he has to do his own thing in life.  He cannot listen to or follow anyone else, or he will end up like his father, a regretful old man.

Whatever the individual wants to do in life, there will be a fight that comes with it.  This fight will come because what the masses want from you will almost never be what you want from yourself.  To be an individual is to be different and different is scary to people who live in the Zenith’s and the Gopher Prairie’s. If your not who you want to be then you will end up living someone else’s life like Babbitt and not yours. Of all the things worth fighting for as an individual though, love is the greatest.

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