Summary The Kennicotts have the first real quarrel of their married life, each enumerating the faults and shortcomings of the other. From her husband’s point of view, Carol is highbrow, extravagant, and ungracious to his friends. She thinks of him as unappreciative of finer things, jealous of fellow practitioners, and […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 14-16Summary and Analysis Chapters 11-13
Summary The women’s study club, Thanatopsis, is meeting to consider the whole field of English poetry in one session, and Carol is invited. The program is dull and statistical. Shakespeare, Byron, Burns, Moore, Tennyson, Browning, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Gray, Mrs. Hemans, and Kipling are all disposed of, facts about their […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 11-13Summary and Analysis Chapters 8-10
Summary Without much success, Carol tries to get her husband to discuss his cases with her. Then Vida Sherwin calls and blows Carol’s world to pieces. Vida says that her friend is the “pluckiest little idiot in the world,” but a bit tactless. Carol dresses too well, is too frivolous, […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 8-10Summary and Analysis Chapters 5-7
Summary Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott spend a whole day hunting prairie chickens and squirrels with his new hammerless shotgun. Though the rough terrain hurts her feet and the sport is new to her, Carol enjoys the day, especially the contact with Mr. and Mrs. Rustad and her visit to their […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 5-7Summary and Analysis Chapters 3-4
Summary Local train No. 7 grumbles its way though Minnesota without porter, pillow, or berths, but jammed with farmers and their untidy families, workmen, and traveling salesmen. The atmosphere is thick and stale. Among the slatternly passengers, Dr. Will Kennicott and his bride, Carol, stand out as cool, clean, and […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 3-4Summary and Analysis Chapters 1-2
Summary Carol Milford, escaped for an hour from Blodgett College, stands in relief against the “cornflower blue” of the Minnesota sky. Two generations ago, Chippewas camped on this hill overlooking the Mississippi. Today one sees the flour mills and skyscrapers of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Sharply etched against the sky, […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 1-2Character List
Carol Kennicott In rebellion against small-town boredom, is the nonconformist central figure of the novel. Dr. Will Kennicott Carol’s husband, is a competent but practical-minded physician. Stewart Snyder A young law student Mr. and Mrs. Johnson Marbury Friends of Carol’s sister Luke Dawson Wealthy money lender and landowner Mrs. Dawson […]
Read more Character ListAbout Main Street
Main Street became a household word, both in the United States and abroad, within a few years after the publication of Sinclair Lewis’ widely read novel. The book satirizes the ugliness and conformity found in small Midwest towns during the second decade of the twentieth century and ridicules the uninspired […]
Read more About Main StreetBook Summary
In writing Main Street, Sinclair Lewis paid little attention to formal plot development. Consequently the narrative presents a series of episodes rather than a tightly constructed plot. Carol Milford Kennicott, a graduate of “sanctimonious” Blodgett College, with a year of additional study in a Chicago library school, works as a […]
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