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Babbitt vs. Looking Backward and America in 1920
Question 1
The authors of the novels Babbit and Looking Backward take a different tone to express the American situation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In the novel Looking Backward, Edward Bellamy takes an optimistic tone to give hope to the Americans amid social, economic and political challenges. Bellamy explains that humanity will have better civilization after solving the chaos that they faced by embracing human values (Bellamy 9). To succeed in this tone, Bellamy adopts a utopian style, where he writes about a future that is a century ahead. The utopian style gives an optimistic tone to by describing the ability of human beings to reason and demonstrating optimism by describing how the human goodness can change the world.
On the other hand, Sinclair Lewis takes a satirical tone to critique the American society and the behavior of the people. Particularly, the novel takes a satirical tone by critiquing the middle-class life of the American society. According to the satire, Lewis critiques the way Americans conform to the middle-class without thinking about the status of the society. The satirical tone is what gives the book its title “Babbit” as Lewis tries to present an American professional conforming to the middle-class standards.
Question 2
In 1920, the American society was marked by a growing middleclass as a social class. This was because of the growth of industries and the enlargement of the employment opportunities. In addition, the 1920 American society had an increase in the number of populations living in urban centers than in the farms. American professional like realtor Babbit enjoyed better officers, shopping in the streets and meeting groups of employees and satisfied with the services in towns (Lewis 34). This was as a result of the growth of urban centers due to industrial growth, and population by the middle class. Moreover, the Americans were becoming a consumer society that had disposable income and increase in demand for products.
Works Cited
Bellamy, Edward. Looking Backward. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1889, Print
Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., 1922, Print