Q's Views

Just finished Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. Loved it. It's an interesting view into small town life. Carol Milford, a college graduate from Minneapolis, marries a physician from Gopher Prairie and moves to the town with the intent of reforming it with the arts and some modern ideas. She quickly becomes disillusioned by the extent of the satisfaction that the town folk are comfortable with their town and their lives in it. What results is an almost constant conflict between Carol and the 'way it is' in GP. I really enjoyed.
At different points throughout the novel, I found relevance in it applicable today. I particularly wanted to pass along these two paragraphs between Carol and her husband, Dr. Kennicott. This exchange takes place just before Carol leaves him to go to Washington, DC for two years.
Carol: "See here, my beloved, why can't you Tories declare war honestly. You don't oppose this organizer because you think he's seditious but because you are afraid that the farmers that he is organizing will deprive you townsmen of the money you make out of mortgages and wheat and shops. Of course, since we are at war with Germany, anything that any one doesn't like is "pro-German", whether it's business competition or bad music. If we were fighting England, you'd call the radicals "pro-British." I suppose when this war is over, I suppose you will be calling them "red anarchists." What an eternal art it is --such a delightful glittery art -- finding hard names for our opponents! How we do sanctify our efforts to keep them from getting the holy dollars we want for ourselves! The churches have always done it, and the political orators -- and I suppose I do it when I call Mrs. Bogart a "Puritan" and Mr. Stowbody a "capitalist." But you business men are going to beat all the rest of us at it, with your simple-hearted, energetic, pompous ---"
She got this far only because Kennicott was slow in shaking off respect for her. Now he bayed:
"That'll be about enough from you. I've stood for your sneering at this town, and saying how dull and ugly 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 going to stand: I'm not going to stand for my own my wife being seditious. You can camouflage all you want to, but you know darn well that these radicals, as you call 'em, are opposed to the war, and let me tell you right here and now, and you and all these long-haired men and short-haired women can beef all you want to, but we're going to take these fellows, and if they ain't patriotic, we're going to make them patriotic. And -- Lord knows I never thought I'd have to say this to my own wife -- but if you go defending thes fellows, then the same thing applies to you! Next thing, I suppose you'll be yapping about free speech. Free speech! There's too much free speech and free gas and free beer and free love and all the rest of your damned mouth freedom, and if I had my way I'd make you folks live up to the established rules of decency even if I had to take you---"
This exchange represents the clash between Carol and her thoughts and the rest of the town. In this case, it's her husband. Not only did I find summarily representative of the whole novel, it rang true with the state of some of the scary thinking in the US today. Main Street was written in 1920, but I continually questioned whether we as Americans, whether in small towns or cities, have moved beyond the petty provincialism satirized in this novel.
I don't know, I'm just asking.
Until next time,
Q