Читать книгу Between Dream Houses and "God's Own Junkyard": Architecture and the Built Environment in American Suburban Fiction - Stefanie Strebel - Страница 7

If there is an author who stands out in the literary suburban context of the 1920s, then this author is Sinclair Lewis. Lewis went down in history as the first American novelist to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, and he was awarded the prize owing to his exceptional ability to create new literary characters. One of these original characters, and certainly one of the most memorable, is the eponymous hero of his novel Babbitt, published in 1922. In fact, the character of George F. Babbitt is original and unique to such an extent that the term “Babbitt” quickly found its way into the English language. A Babbitt, in the OED, is defined as “a materialistic, complacent businessman who conforms unthinkingly to the views and standards of his social set.” The effect that the novel had on language is unsurprising given the author’s unprecedented satirical representation of middle-class conformity and materialism in the United States. Lewis created the literary archetype of the American suburban middle-class husband, father and businessman, and, in addition to the English language, therewith also influenced the works of other writers. In his 1926 travel book Jesting Pilate: The Diary of a Journey, Aldous Huxley, for instance, states that “[a]t all times the vast majority of human beings has consisted of Babbitts and peasants” (279). A further example listed by Hutchisson (89) is English author C. E. M. Joad’s book The Babbitt Warren (1927), a sociological critique of American society. Furthermore, American journalist and satirist H. L. Mencken adopted the term “Babbittry,” which the OED defines as “[b]ehaviour and attitudes characteristic of or associated with the character George Babbitt; […] [especially] complacency and unthinking conformity.” The fact that Lewis’ archetype of a character had such a vast impact on the English language and on other authors leads to the conclusion that the social concept of the “Babbitt” had existed long before the publication of the novel, but an appropriate name for it was lacking. Love (13) argues that with the adoption of the term into the English language, “a name has been given to that which people recognize and accept as true to their experience of life, but which they [had not] realized in any palpable way, for up to that point there had been no word for it.”

As becomes apparent when considering the definition and usages of the term, Babbitt is a satire on America in the 1920s – on its culture, its modes of behaviour –, as well as a broadside fired at the average member of American society. The novel mainly focuses on and criticises the mid-sized industrial city, in contrast to the author’s first successful publication Main Street (1920), which primarily deals with provincialism in small-town America. Babbitt is set in a fictional Midwestern city named Zenith, with the Midwest being commonly associated with mass production and the rising consumer society of the time. After all, this part of the United States, now colloquially referred to as the “Rust Belt,” was the birthplace of Fordism. With respect to the current dilapidation of industrial cities like Detroit, as well as the ever-rising social criticism concerning mass production and consumerism, the Midwest has suffered reputational damage over the decades, but in the Roaring Twenties, it stood as a proud symbol of economic success and progress.

The emerging mass consumer culture of the time was based primarily on spending, leisure and entertainment. The time between 1919 and Black Tuesday in 1929 is referred to as the “big business” period due to the increased production of mass consumer goods, faster production times and technological innovations. In the years between 1921 and 1929, industrial productivity in the United States doubled under the first two Republican presidents, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. The American Dream has always been closely linked to ideas of materialism and consumerism, but never before had people been able to indulge in this aspect of the American Dream to such an extent. The 1920s offered people an opportunity to reach prosperity and success, merging the notions of materialism and personal freedom as depicted by historian James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book The Epic of America. The author states that “the American dream that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of merely material plenty.” Much more than this, “[i]t has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any and every class” (Adams 405). The dream of material plenty combined with personal freedom is considerably questioned in Babbitt, however. Lewis is concerned with the mass production of material goods as much as he is concerned with the constricting “mass production” of American society, and that of the (upper) middle class in particular. Babbitt deals with the mass production of political ideals, of religious beliefs, of commercial interests, but also with the standardisation of commodities and the built environment.

In order to establish how the built environment and mass-produced commodities may contribute to the standardisation of the (suburban) individual, however, it is necessary to first characterise this standardised identity by scrutinising the protagonist of the novel. George F. Babbitt is the epitome of the well-to-do self-made businessman in the Midwest of the early 1920s, with the 1920s being a period in time when the United States had “experienced a transition from the stage of industrial accumulation to advanced corporate accumulation” (Gordon 122). Coming from a seemingly average background, Babbitt climbed the social ladder and moved from a rural area to the mid-sized city of Zenith, Winnemac – the embodiment of the “Corporate City” (Gordon 122).1 The protagonist divides his time between his real estate business and social life in the city centre, and his private life as a suburban husband at the edge of the city, in Floral Heights. Babbitt’s existence, similar to that of the majority of people in his social environment, revolves around the business world, personal success, as well as earthly possessions and status symbols.

As the story progresses, Babbitt goes through vicissitudes regarding his contentment with his professional and personal life, and it turns out that suburban life and commercial success should not have been his primary aspirations. He even begins to half-heartedly rebel against his class and its ideals, all while constantly being afraid of other people’s judgement. However, Babbitt’s rebellion only becomes a concern relatively late in the novel; initially, he superficially appears to be satisfied with his life situation, as well as with his social and physical environment. As Frederick (276) points out, “the suburb is the social climber’s imagined paradise. […] [But] those who are sophisticated know very well the silly fallacy in this.” Babbitt, lacking this sophistication and following the masses blindly at the beginning of the novel, becomes aware of this circumstance gradually as the narrative progresses, only to fall back on the security of the suburb in the end.

In terms of character and views, Babbitt is more than complacent. He shapes his opinions according to those expressed in the media or by influential figures and movements, and he appears to have no mind of his own. According to Stevenson, he is part of an overwhelming majority that lives “in a massive, dumb affection,” but that nevertheless went down in history as the “fortunate folk.” Babbitt belongs to that segment of American society “with radios and automobiles, with new washing machines and toasters and vacuum cleaners, caught up in the life of instalment buying and the emulation of the heroes and heroines of the advertisements in the Saturday Evening Post” (Stevenson 2). Furthermore, Babbitt “pinned upon the map of consciousness the look and habits of a numerous, shallow, widespread type of American businessman, an eager, persistent, and inescapable type” (Stevenson 101). In other words, he is “the middle businessman, who enjoyed being part of the great, undifferentiated average” (Stevenson 145). He is ignorant of most aspects of life and culture except real estate, he is a conformist member of the middle class, and he is unsure as to who he truly is throughout most of the novel – in a nutshell, he is an outstanding exemplar of the “boobus americanus,” to use H. L. Mencken’s term.

Verticality as Achievement in the Built Environment of Zenith

How it was possible for opinion makers or the mass media to mould a 1920s businessman into a “Babbitt” is rather obvious, particularly when considering their persuasive power at the time. The role of the built environment, design and commodities in the standardisation of identity and personality is more difficult to define, however. A good starting point for examining the impact of the built environment on the characters of Babbitt, as well as on the “babittisation” of the United States, is to scrutinise more closely the primary setting of the novel.

The city of Zenith is the literal zenith, or the epitome of achievement, and serves as a role model for smaller towns. According to Vergil Gunch, a Zenith coal merchant, these small towns “all got an ambition that in the long run is going to make ‘em the finest spots on earth – they all want to be just like Zenith” (119). The depiction of life in Zenith as the zenith of achievement is highly satirical of course, as throughout the better part of the novel, Babbitt is far from happy with his life in this environment. He dreams about the “fairy child” taking him out of his house, allowing him to escape the superficial perfection that is Zenith, as well as the pressure to achieve.

Similar to Zenith being the literal epitome of urban achievement in the eyes of its residents, Floral Heights is the literal paradisical suburban retreat, and its name suggests grandeur, too. As already mentioned, Zenith is an industrial and industrious city, and the contrast between the image of predominantly functional yet aspirational architecture in the city and the image of the floral garden in the suburb nominally and visually sets the two settings apart. Yet in terms of social implications, the parallels are straightforward. Both names contain the notion of verticality, meaning that climbing the social ladder is synonymous with climbing the ladder in terms of the physical environment. There is an unmistakable upward movement to be discerned in the settings, and Floral Heights is not only nominally but also topographically speaking built on an elevated spot of land. Achievement in the city below thus grants access to a higher sphere, to an idyllic elevated living environment that feeds off the success of the city at its base.

Achievement in the city below also grants access to the richest part of Zenith, the suburban neighbourhood of Royal Ridge. Once more the idea of verticality and elevation is present, this time peaking at the very top of society. The image of the ridge, a continuous elevated crest, marks the literal topographical zenith of the setting, leaving the “heights” of Floral Heights below it. Although the term “royal” is suggestive of aristocracy – in this case an American interpretation of the concept –, Royal Ridge is also a place for the newly rich, even though the architecture of its houses certainly conveys a majestic and old-money feel.

One of the houses in Royal Ridge belongs to Charles McKelvey, a university friend of Babbitt’s who has surpassed him in terms of financial success. His superiority finds its echo in the regalness of his distinguished suburban home, a frequent venue for high-society events and dances. His mansion is embedded in spatially generous lawns and landscaping, and the narrator considers it to be one of the most distinguished sights crowning Royal Ridge. In spite of its rather cold and mighty walls of stone, as well as its famously decorated vast rooms, it is described as merry and homelike. As far as interior architecture and décor are concerned, it is especially its vastness and spaciousness that define the mansion. The hall is so generously proportioned that with its immaculately polished hardwood floor, it is perfectly suitable as a ballroom. Furthermore, much of the building has a highly aristocratic feel to it: the long library, the baronial fireplace, the drawing-room featuring deep comfortable armchairs and shaded lamps, as well as the billiard room, transmit a sense of old money and nobility. It therefore becomes apparent that this Royal Ridge house embodies essentially European aristocratic characteristics – with billiards being a game that has been played in the courts of Europe for centuries –, and it is thus a somewhat presumptuous display of wealth. However, this mock-aristocratic house, as well as the neighbourhood it represents, is undoubtedly the epitome of achievement, and it is the geographical, topographical and social peak of the suburban belt of Zenith.

In spite of the various notions of peaks, upward mobility and achievement that are supposed to make Zenith a role model for the rest of the United States, Lewis openly suggests that he sees this place as an interchangeable locale. Despite the residents’ conviction that their city embodies that to which other places should aspire, Zenith, in reality, resembles any other American urban environment. As the narrator points out, “[a] stranger suddenly dropped into the business-center of Zenith could not have told whether he was in a city of Oregon or Georgia, Ohio or Maine, Oklahoma or Manitoba” (52). Nonetheless, to residents like Babbitt, Zenith has individuality and character, and his neighbourhood gives him comfort. After a frustrating day at work in the city, the sight of his suburban kingdom has a soothing effect on him. He completely forgets his misery when he sees Floral Heights and its charms from Smith Street, “the roofs of red tile and green slate, the shining new sun-parlors, and the stainless walls” (73). The narrator also points out that Babbitt has an “authentic love for his neighborhood, his city, his clan” (28). Despite its superficial interchangeability, the people of Zenith make the city their home by personalising it with their own mental maps and emotional attachments.

The fact that both Zenith and Floral Heights are fictional settings does not necessarily imply that through their being fictional, the author sought to create a literary embodiment of the average city or suburb in order to stylise and satirise it. In fact, Lewis was critical enough of the phenomenon of mediocrity in real places and did not need a fictional setting to caricature it. Despite his satirisation of Zenith as the epitome of mediocre and conformist America, the reason behind his choice of a non-existent setting is rooted in the negative response he received from residents for his depiction of a real town in Main Street (Fleming 683). Following this response, the author developed the state of Winnemac, including its largest town Zenith, in his subsequent novels, and envisioned it as “more typical than any real state in the Union, and in one book after another [he] would describe the representative activities of its inhabitants, until he had completed a wide survey of American society” (Cowley 168).

The fact that Lewis did not need to invent a fictional city in order to stylise and exaggerate its features does not mean that he failed to take advantage of this opportunity, however. Zenith’s urban zones, as well as its suburban belt, are well-defined and clear-cut to such an extent that they seem to have been designed with a straightedge, or taken out of a textbook. As a case in point, the suburban belt depicted in Babbitt is situated in the immediate vicinity of the core city, and Babbitt’s house is located only a few miles from the office towers in the centre, but there are highly obvious visual boundaries. Generally speaking, Zenith is a place that is shaped by stark aesthetic contrasts: it has a modern shiny business district at its core – the destination of Babbitt’s daily commute –, decaying or derelict old structures surrounding its core, as well as new suburban houses at its fringes.

The importance of the setting and its contrasting architecture is emphasised in the opening lines of the novel, as the environment and its built structures are the first details to which the reader’s attention is drawn. The narrator draws a picture of how “[t]he towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. They were neither citadels nor churches, but frankly and beautifully office-buildings.” With nature as an agent in its interaction with architecture, “[t]he mist took pity on the fretted structures of earlier generations: the Post Office with its shingle-tortured mansard, the red brick minarets of hulking old houses, factories with stingy and sooted windows, wooden tenements colored like mud.” As far as old, fretted structures are concerned, “[t]he city was full of such grotesqueries, but the clean towers were thrusting them from the business center, and on the farther hills were shining new houses, homes – they seemed – for laughter and tranquillity” (1). Hence, Lewis not only establishes the importance of the setting through its detailed description in the opening paragraphs, but he also emphasises the relationship between the different urban and suburban neighbourhoods in terms of their historical development, as well as their architectural and social demarcations. The mighty, modern and overpowering towers of the financial district clash with the derelict architectural remnants of an earlier time, a time which was determinately more industrial and less business-oriented. While the perceived clean architectonic beauty of the modern business district rises proudly above the mist into visibility, the decaying and unsightly “structures of earlier generations” are suppressed into invisibility. Similarly rising above the mist are the suburban houses on the hills into which businessmen retreat after a day of work spent in the austere concrete towers in the centre. Therefore, the idea of physical and topographical verticality as a marker of achievement and success is emphasised in the image of the high-rise and the well-to-do suburb on the hill, that is, in structures and environments which overlook the industrial past that slides into obscurity.

The Reciprocity Between Architecture, Design, Commodities and Character

One of the polished new houses on the suburban hills overlooking the city, removed from architectural grotesqueries as well as sterile high-rises, is the home of the Babbitt family, a green and white Dutch Colonial. It is a respectable yet indistinguishable home, mirroring the respectableness and indistinguishability of George F. Babbitt as a character: “He was not fat but exceedingly well fed […]. He seemed prosperous, extremely married and unromantic; and altogether unromantic appeared [his] sleeping-porch, which looked on one sizable elm, two respectable grass-plots, a cement driveway, and a corrugated iron garage” (2). In fact, many aspects of the house are a reflection of Babbitt’s character, or at least a reflection of his perception of himself. He sees, for instance, the perfection of his yard, and attributes this sophistication to himself; his yard is that of a successful Zenith businessman, and through its perfection, it makes him perfect, too.

Paralleling the fact that Babbitt’s character is mirrored in his home, his immediate neighbours, the Doppelbraus and the Littlefields, are mirrored in their architectural habitat, too. The Dopplebraus, whom Babbitt disapprovingly considers a bohemian couple, own “a comfortable house with no architectural manners whatever; a large wooden box with a squat tower, a broad porch, and glossy paint yellow as yolk” (24). Similar to the architectural appearance of their house being somewhat out of place in Lewis’ suburban setting, their life is “an eternal cabaret […] dominated by suburban bacchanalia of alcohol, nicotine, gasoline and kisses” (339). The more sophisticated and academic Littlefields, in contrast, live in a more sophisticated home that matches their social standing, “a strictly modern house whereof the lower part was dark red tapestry brick, with a leaded oriel, the upper part of pale stucco like spattered clay, and the roof red-tiled” (25).

In contrast to the variety encountered in the exterior appearance of houses, standardisation of the interior is a rule that everyone adheres to in Floral Heights, as, for example, observed in the décor of the luxurious bathrooms of the suburb. Despite its moderate size, Babbitt’s house, like all the other houses in Floral Heights, has “an altogether royal bathroom of porcelain and glazed tile and metal sleek as silver,” and further design details are similarly regal in appearance: “The towel-rack was a rod of clear glass set in nickel. The tub was long enough for a Prussian Guard, and above the set bowl was a sensational exhibit of tooth-brush holder, shaving-brush holder, soap-dish, sponge-dish, and medicine-cabinet, so glittering and so ingenious that they resembled an electrical instrument-board” (5). The interior design of the royal bathroom, determined by the religion of “Modern Appliances” (5), is an exaggerated and blatantly disproportionate display of wealth. It is disproportionate in comparison to the size of the house and Babbitt’s income, but the bathroom is a part of the home that is particularly suitable for design-related exaggeration due to its limited space. Nevertheless, despite its royal appearance, Babbitt’s bathroom is indistinguishable from other examples in Floral Heights. This room is standardised to a great degree, so that it is turned into a benchmark for the accumulation of material goods and appliances, and, as a consequence, it marks social rank. Failing to meet a certain dictated design standard would cause suburbanites to feel socially inferior to their neighbours, even though the bathroom is a private realm to which outsiders are often denied access.

As the detailed description of Babbitt’s bathroom illustrates, more weight is given to interior design than exterior architectural construction in the novel. Babbitt’s limited judgement on architectural taste, or his “large and complacent ignorance of all architecture” (42), does not allow him to partake in this discourse, and in the interior realm, design decisions are conveniently made for him. Public opinion makers determine taste, and as a result, the vast majority of homes in Floral Heights are equipped with the same modern appliances and proudly display the same interior décor:

(Two out of every three houses in Floral Heights had before the fireplace a davenport, a mahogany table real or imitation, and a piano-lamp or a reading-lamp with a shade of yellow or rose silk.) […] (Eight out of every nine Floral Heights houses had a cabinet phonograph.) […] (Nineteen out of every twenty houses in Floral Heights had either a hunting-print, a Madame Fait de la Toilette print, a colored photograph of a New England house, a photograph of a Rocky Mountain, or all four.) (91-92)

The interior décor encountered in the houses of Floral Heights is, for the most part, a display of sheer materialism. Objects are purchased not because they are needed, because they reflect personal taste, or because they have sentimental value. They are purchased because they have aesthetic value, because they mark social status, and because they enable those who purchase them to keep up with or even surpass their neighbours.

This consumer behaviour strongly invokes Thorstein Veblen’s concept of conspicuous consumption, that is, the behaviour of purchasing luxury items as a display of economic power and social status.2 In this behaviour, there are also clear reverberations of Marx’s commodity fetishism, on which Veblen’s concept is based, and which posits that capitalist societies treat commodities as though there were an inherent economic value to them. Considering that fetishism originally referred to the idea that inanimate objects possess supernatural powers, a parallel can be drawn to the fact that Babbitt, according to the narrator, looks at material possessions and modern appliances as his religion. However, an affinity to commodity fetishism can not only be observed in the character of Babbitt, but in most of the suburban population in the novel. The residents of Floral Heights are in a constant anxious struggle to reach a certain status and express this status in material terms – and they express it through what is available to them, that is, mass-produced commodities. As Downey (4) points out, “[t]hrough making our rooms, we display to ourselves and others where we fit in the social and material world.” In Babbitt, this is also true of certain status symbols outside the house, such as cars, cigarette cases and electric cigar lighters, to name only a few examples. The interior of houses is defined by a selection of décor that has been approved by designers and subsequently purchased by extended social circles. As a result, the interior spaces of most Floral Heights houses are strikingly similar and thus never overwhelming; they simply mark familiar, inoffensive territory. The rooms are generally devoid of interesting features; they are “as neat, and as negative, as a block of artificial ice,” and they contain objects that look like “desolate, unwanted, lifeless things of commerce” (92).

The only unconventional middle-class suburban interior in the novel is encountered in the Rieslings’ apartment, which lacks standardised luxury items, or at least the presence of these remains unmentioned. It is especially Zilla Riesling’s unconventionality and flexibility of character that is mirrored in the unconventionality and flexibility of their architectural home. The apartment building they inhabit is experimental, condensed and excessively modern, and it features flexible rooms that can be converted from living rooms to bedrooms, as well as kitchens hidden in cupboards. Considering the numerous instances of mirroring character traits in the built environment, and in the home in particular, Lewis puts substantial emphasis on the parallels between architecture and the individual, and this applies to the Rieslings and to the Babbitts in equal measure. The direction of influence is necessarily reciprocal, and unconventional architecture and the unconventional individual, as well as standardised architecture and the standardised individual, are in constant dialogue with one another.

Standardisation and the Loss of “Home”

“All really inhabited space bears the essence of the notion of home” (Bachelard 5). This is true of both unconventional and standardised interiors. However, the notion of home is unquestionably gradable, and it is due to their impersonality and radiating coldness, their similarity in architecture and décor, that standardised suburban houses lose their sense of home and are reminiscent of anonymous hotels within the context of Babbitt:

The [bed]room displayed a modest and pleasant color-scheme, after one of the best standard designs of the interior decorator who “did the interiors” for most of the speculative-builders’ houses in Zenith. The walls were gray, the woodwork white, the rug a serene blue; and very much like mahogany was the furniture – the bureau with its great clear mirror, Mrs. Babbitt’s dressing-table with toilet-articles of almost solid silver, the plain twin beds, between them a small table holding a standard electric bedside lamp, a glass for water, and a standard bedside book with colored illustrations – what particular book it was cannot be ascertained, since no one had ever opened it. The mattresses were firm but not too hard, triumphant modern mattresses which had cost a great deal of money; the hot-water radiator was of exactly the proper scientific surface for the cubic contents of the room. The windows were large and easily opened, with the best catches and cords, and Holland roller-shades guaranteed not to crack. It was a masterpiece among bedrooms, right out of Cheerful Modern Houses for Medium Incomes. Only it had nothing to do with the Babbitts, nor with any one else. If people had ever lived and loved here, read thrillers at midnight and lain in beautiful indolence on a Sunday morning, there were no signs of it. It had the air of being a very good room in a very good hotel. One expected the chambermaid to come in and make it ready for people who would stay but one night, go without looking back, and never think of it again. […] Every second house in Floral Heights had a bedroom precisely like this. (14-15)

Architecturally speaking, the suburban houses in the novel are doubtlessly built and decorated with good – if somewhat decadent – taste. However, “there was […] one thing wrong with the Babbitt house: It was not a home” (15). Jurca (5) observes that “as the suburban house becomes the primary locus and object of consumption for the white middle class, the artifacts and habits of domestic culture are seen to jeopardize or to destroy the home’s emotional texture.” With the emotional aspect being crucial when it comes to turning a house into a home, and with the suburban house losing this emotional texture increasingly, the sense of home is lost, and the house is transformed into an architectural shell devoid of meaning.

The emotionless standardisation of interior décor, the idea of lifeless but familiar territory, ultimately affects the average suburbanite’s character, with Babbitt being a prime example of the standardised suburban male. Furthermore, and similar to the domestic interior, Babbitt’s beliefs, too, are shaped by opinion makers. As a case in point, the Presbyterian Church and the Republican Party tell him what to believe and what to represent, and advertisers determine his perceived individuality. They tell him what to buy in order to have his passions represented, with the result that material items turn into substitutes for his actual passions and joys: “standard advertised wares – toothpastes, socks, tires, cameras, instantaneous hot-water heaters – were his symbols and proofs of excellence; at first the signs, then the substitutes, for joy and passion and wisdom” (95).

The city of Zenith, it seems, standardises all the beauty out of life, and generally speaking, the novel certainly does not make a case for standardisation. However, according to the character of Seneca Doane, a radical lawyer, much of Europe is equally standardised as the United States, and there is nothing wrong with some aspects of standardisation, as long as it does not affect thought and opinion. Especially the architectural standardisation of suburbia can trigger feelings of home, of homesickness and nostalgia, and it is thus to be welcomed to some extent. Doane remembers once being in London and seeing an image of an American suburb, a toothpaste advertisement in the Sunday Evening Post depicting “an elm-lined snowy street of these new houses, Georgian some of ‘em, or with low raking roofs and – The kind of street you’d find here in Zenith, say in Floral Heights. Open. Trees. Grass.” He reminisces about how seeing this image made him homesick back then, and he insists that “[t]here’s no other country in the world that has such pleasant houses. And I don’t care if they are standardized. It’s a corking standard!” (100-101). Standardisation, after all, means recognisability and identifiability. It makes people feel at home in foreign places, and it enables them to bond beyond their social set and geographical location. American suburbia is a place that is particularly prone to being the subject of sentimental associations of this kind. This is not only due to the standardisation of this environment, but also to the type of standard achieved, as well as to the distinctive suburban character that emerges from this process. What is at stake is a certain sentimentality for the past, a sentimentality for the idea of home, and a sentimentality for the notion of familiarity.

Despite the people of Zenith being aware of the fact that they live in a standardised environment, and that they are standardised individuals themselves, they take pride in this, mostly because they perceive their standard to be in a state of perfection. Giving the annual address at the Zenith Real Estate Board, Babbitt talks about how “the fellow with four to ten thousand a year […] and an automobile and a nice little family and a bungalow on the edge of town […] makes the wheels of progress go round.” He is the “Ideal Citizen” (181); in other words, he is the average suburbanite. Babbitt is convinced that this idealised man rules America, and that he should stand as an example to the rest of the world.

In his speech, what Babbitt calls the “Ideal Citizen” he later calls the “Sane Citizen,” and then the “Standardized Citizen” (182); the citizen that saves America from going down the same path as the decayed nations of the Old World. Most importantly, Babbitt is convinced that Zenith is the place in the United States where this citizen is produced. He argues that “Zenith and her sister-cities are producing a new type of civilization. […] The extraordinary, growing, and sane standardization of stores, offices, streets, hotels, clothes, and newspapers throughout the United States shows how strong and enduring a type is ours” (184). Babbitt does not see the standardised citizen as a highly dignified character. The standardised citizen is a regular man who excels in being exactly that. This homogenised regularity in people then finds its reflection in the built environment, as seen in the quotation above. The standardisation of built spaces is perceived as sane; it is a sign of strength and endurance, a belief in a defining ideal. As a consequence, the desired and thus fully intentional monotony of architecture and urban planning is a side effect of the social standardisation of the United States, but at the same time, it reinforces this process and has tremendous repercussions on the homogenisation of the public.

Given the emphasis on the male citizen above, it needs pointing out that the standardisation encountered in the urban environment of Zenith and the suburban environment of Floral Heights is concerned predominantly with the male perspective. In Babbitt, the standardisation of the built and the material environment results from the amount of money the industrious suburban male earns, that is, it results from the standard that can be afforded. The more money a woman’s husband earns, the less reputable it is for her to work outside the house, and the more she is subjected to the standard offered by her husband in the domestic sphere. Women are forced into domesticity, with the suburban house being their “proper sphere,” and are charged with the task of maintaining and furnishing the house according to the suburban standard.3 The process of being pushed into the house by conventions and by their husbands to such an extent even results in Babbitt accepting his wife as “a comparatively movable part of the furniture” (351).

Architecture, Place and Social Belonging

Escaping architectural conventions and standardisation, as well as the social circle that defines them, is not an easy feat, especially in a novel in which architecture and location are such strong reflections of belonging. As a case in point, Babbitt is a member of the upper-middle-class Athletic Club, and due to his social rank, he is denied access to the upper-class Union Club. Similarly, despite his social rise as an orator, he is never a guest at the extravagant dances at the houses in Royal Ridge; the residents of Royal Ridge do not want to see the residents of Floral Heights in their houses, and they do not want to be seen in the houses of Floral Heights. Babbitt’s Royal Ridge acquaintances, the McKelveys, only reluctantly accept his dinner invitation because they see a commercial opportunity in it, and unsurprisingly, it is with the same hesitation that Babbitt accepts a dinner invitation from the Overbrooks in the less classy suburb of Dorchester. Ed Overbrook is a failed former classmate of Babbitt’s and lives far below the standards of Floral Heights. The Overbrook house is described as a depressing sight, a wooden, not very orderly two-family dwelling that smells of cabbage, the poor man’s food. The Babbitts leave the dinner at the first opportunity, and in the same manner that they failed to receive a return invitation from the high society in Royal Ridge, they deny this opportunity to the Overbrooks. These two examples demonstrate to what extent not only social standing, but also geographical location, architecture and interior design separate people from one another. Being invited into a house above one’s standards is a sign of being accepted into a higher social circle, and both the Babbitts and the Overbrooks fail at their attempts.

It is perhaps this painful experience that prompts Babbitt to try his luck within the boundaries of Floral Heights and be accepted into one of the majestic houses of the old aristocracy, as this would allow him to disregard the problem of crossing geographical or topographical boundaries. The person Babbitt hopes will help him climb the social ladder is William Washington Eathorne, a banker and member of Zenith’s oldest and richest family who lives in the largest of the four old houses in Floral Heights – with “old” meaning built before 1880. His mansion is allotted a lengthy description, pointing towards its aesthetic and symbolic importance within the suburban neighbourhood.

The Eathorne Mansion is described as a remnant of the beautiful parts of Zenith, and it preserves the aesthetic memory of the suburb of Floral Heights between 1860 and 1900. Architecturally, the mansion is an immensity of red brick with grey sandstone lintels; it has a roof of slate in sequences of red, green and dyspeptic yellow; it features two towers, one with a roof of copper, and the other topped with cast-iron ferns; the porch is described as resembling an open tomb supported by short and thick granite columns, with brick hanging above them in frozen cascades; and one side of the mansion displays an enormous stained-glass window shaped like a keyhole. Despite its impressive architecture, however, the overall effect of the mansion is rather stern, as it embodies the dignity of the previously ruling Victorian financiers who created an oligarchy through being in control of, for instance, banks, mines and railroads. As a result, out of the numerous contradictory Zeniths which come together to shape the actual and complete Zenith, there is none so influential, controlling and enduring, but also so unfamiliar as the small, polite and cruel version of Zenith as represented by the William Eathornes, “and for that tiny hierarchy the other Zeniths unwittingly labor and insignificantly die” (213). The narrator observes that the majority of the castles owned by the Victorian tetrarchs have disappeared or have been downgraded to boarding houses, yet the Eathorne Mansion still stands virtuous and aloof, with its marble steps and brass plate meticulously maintained.

As for Babbitt, the historical value and architectural condition of the Eathorne Mansion are awe-inspiring to him. He realises that his present self and his present life situation are insufficient, and that he must aspire to something higher and become more rigorous, cold and powerful. Through being granted access to the Eathorne Mansion, with its European sense of aristocratic architecture and design, Babbitt is reassured in his endeavour. He adorns himself with the architectural symbolism of the mansion, and he lets the architecture enhance him and transform him into the person he is actively striving to become.

In terms of architectural influence, the same holds true when Babbitt denounces and rebels against his life as a middle-class suburban husband. By switching locations and spending time in the bohemian abode of his mistress Tanis Judique, he more and more transforms into a socialist, fighting social conventions. From the point of view of his former self, there is a social as well as a geographical and architectural downward movement as he sneaks “from Floral Heights down to the Bunch” (342, my emphasis). However, upon realising that the “Bunch’s” social rebellion is similarly pathetic and desperate as his own, Babbitt sneaks back up into the security and conformity of Floral Heights. He returns to conventional suburbia geographically, socially and ideologically speaking, feeling as though he were “swinging from bleak uplands down into the rich warm air of a valley pleasant with cottages” (389). The idyllic image of a valley with cottages, as well as the transition from bleakness to warmth, underlines his newfound or (temporarily) re-found appreciation of the suburban standard, even though this standard is likely to exert its influence and turn him back into his old conventional self.

Babbitt therefore returns to where the story began; his attempted escape from the mediocrity and monotony that is American suburbia was a failure, and he returns to safety and conformity without much resistance. Floral Heights and all it represents has its firm grip on him, and, it seems, it is too late for him to make significant changes in his life and escape standardisation. Despite the fact that the novel suggests that not all standardisation is inherently negative, Lewis’ criticism outweighs the positive aspects of this process in the end. Even though in the case of the built environment and commodities, standardisation enables people to recognise themselves in other places, and to identify with others, it fails to give them the opportunity to express themselves individually, and it makes them disappear in the masses. It turns them into blind sheep mechanically aspiring to a dictated material standard and mechanically following the prevailing ideology. Furthermore, the analysis of the relation between the built environment and the individual in Babbitt – encompassing architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture and interior design – demonstrates how much these realms reinforce and intersect one another, and that they are in a continuous dialogic relationship. The individual rises and falls not only with its social but also with its architectural environment, and the architectural environment rises and falls with it. Architecture and design are much more than a representation of culture, as they are themselves capable of shaping those who engage with them.

The 1920s – a decade of unprecedented economic prosperity in the United States – were a time when the American citizen was moulded through design and material possessions more than ever before. Babbitt is certainly the most iconic novel of the Jazz Age when it comes to materialism and consumerism within the context of mass culture in America. However, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby continues this dialogue in many respects. While both the setting and social background of the novel differ, and while it is certainly far from being a satire on the conformity encountered in American culture, Fitzgerald develops further some of the same cultural issues criticised in Babbitt, and their repercussions on the (fictional) built environment are equally pronounced.