Midlife Crisis? or Natural Reaction to Life?

Sinclair Lewis wrote Babbit during an era when social turmoil was high, and patriotism low. But while it was the time that influenced his satire about America, the themes seem to be timeless, or at least still relevant today. Take "American Beauty" for example, the film that won Alan Ball a Best Screenplay award at 1999 Academy Awards. "American Beauty," like Babbit, is a satirical look at American life.

Lewis writes about the middle class in 1920's, businessmen, the ideals, the houses, the lawns, the parties, things like that. George F. Babbit lives in an up and coming town Zenith. He is sedated, going with the flow, doing what others around him do, what he thinks should be done. Lewis was a modernist writer, his themes about isolation from society and a failure to connect to the world, which results in some sort of dysfunction. Similarly, "American Beauty" follows Lester Burnham, a man who, after spending most of his life doing what others tell him to do-his wife, kids, employers, the drive-thru-finally "wakes up," thinks for himself, makes conscious decisions, all the while realizing that he has been "sedated" all his years.

Lewis is very bitter towards society, where people "hustle for hustling's sake." Lewis sees it as phony and disillusioned. Babbit wears a "yellowish elk's tooth" on his suit, an unnecessary detail, a symbol of false values, a symbol much like the one that Lester Burnham sports, his "Mr. Smiley" patch on his work uniform. There are so many striking similarities between the novel and film that either Ball did an excellent, and unsaid, job of adapting the novel, or it is simply a condition of the middle class male that is as prevalent today as it was 80 years ago.

Babbit wakes each morning to an alarm clock at 7:20 a.m. Every day. Same thing. "Babbit was proud of being awakened by such a device. Socially it was almost as creditable as buying expensive cord tires." Clearly, Lewis is being facetious. Not that his character doesn't value the alarm clock-he does-but Lewis doesn't, which is the whole point. The unnecessaries, the extravagances, the mis-valued. Objects like the alarm clock, cord tires, front lawns, "rich devices," they're all symbols of that, the "American Dream," false ideals. Or at least false according to Lewis.

Lewis was bitter, like most modernists. It was post-war turmoil, the aftermath of an American system gone wrong. They questioned all of it, everything that was promised and built up under the Dream-religion, family, career. "It was the neat yard of a successful businessman of Zenith, that is, it was perfection, and made him also perfect." Obviously, a lawn, nor a person, can ever be "perfect." There is no such thing as perfect. But the idea that the characters and the society believe perfection to be true is what Lewis wants to show, and disprove.

Similarly, Lester Burnham lives on "Robinhood Trail," a clear jab at the almost fairy-tale image people have of the suburbs, a clean and magical place, which, if you take a step back and look at it, is pretty absurd. Lester, in a prelude to his "awakening," says of his wife, "See the way the handle on those pruning sheers match her gardening clogs? That's not an accident." Just like Lewis mocks the "perfect" lawns, and the people who are perfect because of it, Ball mocks life in the suburbs, a woman who matches perfectly her gardening clogs to her sheers.

Both Lewis and Ball portray society as having no individuality. They are "the masses" in every sense, all standard, all following similar ideas, looking the same, aspiring together, wanting together. "A standard electric bedside lamp, a glass of water, and a standard bedside book with colored illustrations," Lewis writes. Everything is standard, proper, in place, the way it has been decided, the way it should be. It is a shallow, very sterile picture that he paints-water, a simple book with illustrations. He says the bedside book has never been opened-it is there only for appearance, like, it seems, is everything else. There is no substance, no point, just an idea that Lewis sees as false; "We lead you follow."

Babbit's family life is no different. "Babbit disliked his family, and disliked himself for disliking them." He did what he was supposed to do-got married. It is for appearance, to be standard, not because of love or substance. Conversations with his wife are about "domestic and social aspects of towels." Again, Lewis picks a towel as a symbol of value placed on something aesthetic, a status "symbol." The only escape that Babbit has from his futile marriage is a nightly dream of a "fairy child," a sexual fantasy in which he flees to a grassy hump to be with this young fairy.

In "American Beauty," Lester often fantasizes about his daughter's friend, a high school cheerleader. He spies on her when she's at the house, masturbates to the thought of her. Both men, sedated in a hapless marriage, fantasize about young girls, virgins, pure and white and innocent, something that seems real and alive to them, even though they are seemingly unattainable, or at least socially unattainable.

It takes a dramatic event to "awaken" Babbit; a friend shoots his wife (the friend's wife, not Babbit's). Babbit initially views it as temporary insanity. But then he thinks about it further. He makes a "terrifying, thrilling break with everything that was decent and normal." He starts drinking, living a nonstandard life, doing peculiar things, like he is now driven to it somehow, a reaction of some sort.

Lester has a spiritual awakening: "It's a great thing when you remember you still have the ability to surprise yourself. It makes you wonder what else you can do that you've forgotten about." Ball writes this to remind the audience. It is supposed to ring true to everyone, to all of the people who are sedated, who go about their daily routines, who live standard lives, who do things because they are supposed to, because it has been decided, even though it might not have substance. It is the same thing that Babbit learned 80 years ago. It can be called a "midlife crisis." But what is that, anyway, other than awakening from deep sleep, realizing that you haven't lived the way you've wanted to live, that you've sedated yourself, or allowed yourself to be sedated?

"It's the weirdest thing. I feel like I've been in a coma for twenty years and I'm just now waking up," Lester says. "This isn't life, this is stuff!" He proceeds to defy his rules and boundaries, to drink wine on his wife's couch, to quit his job, to do things he misses, or always wanted to do, like smoke marijuana and speak his mind. He rebels openly, and enjoys it. It is liberating. Ball wants us to see how happy and free life should be, when you don't let standards and ideals, and ideas, and things like that pin you down.

Babbit "questioned before his vacation he could have questioned the joys of being a solid citizen." Lewis shows that the force of society and its standards is too powerful. Happiness seems to revolve around social standing. But, like Lester, he eventually awakens: "As he fell asleep on the davenport he felt that he found something in life, and that he made a terrifying, thrilling break with everything that was decent and normal." Now, clearly what Lewis believes to be decent and normal are not what Babbit believes to be so. Babbit does exactly as Lewis would have everyone do, give up the "decent" and "normal," lawns and rich devices, things like that. In the same backwards sense, to "fall asleep" on the davenport is actually to wake up, in Lewis' eyes.

Both characters need a little help from their friends to escape the confines of social thinking: Lester uses marijuana, and Babbit begins to drink. Babbit becomes an alcoholic-he needs the help. He feels guilty about abandoning the ideals that others share. He is secretive about his drinking, and he makes excuses to friends, and himself. In "American Beauty," Lester's wife says of his free-spirited ways, "You'll never get away with this!" as if it's some kind of crime to do and say what you feel like doing and saying.

When Lester realized that he was still able to surprise himself, it was an echo of Babbit, when he admitted, "I've never done a single thing I've wanted to do in my whole life! I don't know I accomplished anything except just get along…" This is more than just a midlife crisis, this is confining yourself to a way of thinking and doing. This is not acting and living freely. This is being part of the masses, sedated.

In the end, Lester doesn't get away with it, as his wife predicted. His neighbor shoots him, for a combination of many absurd reasons and circumstances, which is, often, what life amounts to anyway. What does that mean for Ball? That you can't get away with living outside of society? Maybe. Or maybe he just wanted a good twist. What happens to Babbit? I can't remember; it's been a long time since I've read it. But the point is that they are very similar stories, and it goes beyond a man experiencing a midlife crisis, it is a man in society, forced to live unnaturally, "stuff" not life, an idea of "perfection," standards. Ball seems to think that one can awaken or be cured by liberating the self. Lewis seems to think it is inevitable, a condition of society. Either way…