George F. Babbitt is the main character in Lewis’s novel and he was a man that epitomized the materialism and mediocrity of the American middle class. The Babbitts’ lived in the neat, uniform community of Floral Heights with a comfortable home that was full of all of the most modern appliances and conveniences. Due to Babbitt’s flourishing real estate business, he was able to afford a car, “the best of nationally advertised and quantitatively produced alarm-clocks, with all the modern attachments”, an electric toaster, an electric percolator and countless other expensive, up to date conveniences. Babbitt was a man obsessed with things and though he realized that this was unfulfilling, he was not

Another example is in Afghanistan. The Afghanis conformed to whatever they were told by the Taliban. Men were told to grow their beards, so they did, girls couldn’t go to school, and women couldn’t go out alone. The people acted the way they were told out of fear. That’s why there was very little progress there. A nation has to reject mediocrity to advance.

quite aware of how to attain a life that was fuller and meaningful.

Conformity and mediocrity are two significant themes in Lewis’s Babbitt. Although the novel was written in the 1920’s, it is applicable to today’s society and gives the reader a look into what middle-class life was like then.

Throughout the novel, Lewis expressed his viewpoint that society was becoming a population of people conforming in order to be safe, to be one with the crowd and to be successful. Lewis also showed that this is an unfulfilling way to live. The ability for Babbitt, and the other businessmen in Floral Heights, to afford and acquire all of these objects is representative of the economic boom that America was in during the time that Lewis wrote Babbitt.

A third example is when people go to certain stores

Some topics in this essay:
America Babbitt’s, Due Babbitt’s, Afghanistan Afghanis, George Babbitt, Citizens’ League, Wear Shop, Lewis’s Babbitt, Floral Heights, Babbitt Babbitt, main character, America Lewis, middle class, floral heights, novel lewis, george babbitt, babbitt’s house, lewis’s babbitt, society becoming, conformity mediocrity,