Criticism of Society w.r.t. Main Street & Grapes of Wrath

“ This is America-a town of a few thousand, in a region of wheat and corn and dairies and little groves. The town is in our tale called “Gopher Prairie, Minesota.”But its main street is the continuation of Main Streets everywhere. The story would be the same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas or Ken tacky or Illinois, and not very different would it be told in Up New York state or in the Carolina Hills.

Main Street is the climax of civilization that this Ford car might stand in front of the Bon Ton Store, Hannibal invaded Rome and Erasmus wrote in Oxford cloisters. What Ole Jensen the grocer says to Ezra Stow boy the banker is the new law for London, Prague, and the unprofitable isles of the sea: whatsoever Ezra does not know and sanction, that thing is heresy, worthlessfor knowing and wicked to consider.

Such is our comfortable tradition and sure faith. Would he not betray himself an alien cynic who should otherwise portray Main Street, or distress the citizens by speculating whether there may not be other faiths?”

Anther stage in Carol’s counter education is her attempt to improve the town by working through its main cultural force, most eminent ladies. She finds herself stopped at every point by private interests: the wife of the school superintendent thinks reform should begin with a brand new school building and the minister’s wife wants a new large church. That plan of Carol’s dies like the rest, along with her good intention and part of her spirit. This way it goes episode after episode, in which Lewis demonstrates the provincialism, the hypocrisy, the narrowness and at last the cruelty of small town life. Guy Pollock once talented and ambitious sits like a tired old man in his musty office, a victim of the “village virus” the fear of meeting the competition and energy of the larger world outside. The town’s professional man harbor petty jealousies and hostilities, one undercutting the other’s. A young teacher is discharged from her job and driven from the town in disgrace, even though the school board does not truly believe she is guilty of the misconduct with which she has been charged. Her crime has been her youth and high spirits. The town’s only other rebel, Miles Bjornstam, atheist, socialist and thoroughly decent human being, leaves Gopher Prairie a broken man when his wife and child die of typhoid and it is rumored that he has killed them with the mistreatment finally, Carol herself must leave when the combination of Gopher Prairie’s war inspired hatred of all things German and its booster spirit becomes more than she can endure. Her education in disillusionment has been so complete, it threatens to rob her of all dignity and identity, of the very urge to live. Lewis also convinces the reader that the only way to reform Gopher Prairie is with a shotgun. The main conflict of the novel stems from Carol’s desire to change the town in the face of the town’s resistance to such change. This conflict creates an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion that pervades the entirety of the novel. Although Carol is unable to bring any changes to Ghoper Prairie she does partly triumph in the sense that she puts up a fight. She does not conform to Gopher prairie’s standards; she heroically tries to maintain individuality in a society that demands her conformity. Carol represents change thus she finds herself out of place in Gopher Prairie, a place that steadfastly resists change. She rebels against the American standardizations and uniformity and the exploitation of the farmers and laborers. Carol’s rebellion is allied to the growing discontent of the dissatisfied and downtrodden everywhere. Lewis reminds us that Gopher Prairie is a microcosm that it merely reflects universal events, that it influences these events and is influenced by them. In this way Lewis is a synechdochist in Main Street. We have observed in Main Street Lewis the satirist and the social critic. Lewis the storyteller is also in evidence. The story here concerns Carol’s personal life, and it records Carol’s experience as a woman wife and mother. The merger of the story and social criticism is successful in Main Street. Lewis balances chapters of satire or attack with chapters describing some development in Carol’s private life.

Some topics in this essay:
Gopher Prairie, Rose Sharon, Muley Graves, Vida Sherwin, Main Street, Gopher Prairie’s, Sherwin’s Carol, Guy Pollock, Street Lewis, Ma Joad, gopher prairie, main street, counter education, gopher prairie’s, grapes wrath, main street lewis, lewis tells, conflict carol’s, tenant farmers, carol’s war, lewis storyteller, conflict carol’s war,