HomeBlogPhotosWritingBookshelfFriendsMediaShoppingEmail me |
Modern and Postmodern Depictions of the Modern Businessman in Babbit and O Brother Where Art Thou? O Brother, Where Art Thou?, by the Coen brothers, and Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis, present two distinctly different views of the cultural phenomenon of the salesman hero that entered the American literary space in the early 1920s. There are two important dimensions along which the portrayals differ. The first is found in the literary styles of the two works. Babbitt is exemplary of modernism. O Brother is a post-modernist work that draws from disparate sources to create a mythical whole in which absolute truth does not play a crucial role. The second consists of strictly literal differences in the phenomenon being examined and the characters portraying it. The Coen brothers set their film in rural Depression Era South, while Lewis shows us Babbitt’s life in a 1921 Midwestern city. These differences interact to give us two pictures of a rising new aristocracy of businessmen and the underclasses that accompany it.. O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a pastiche. The opening credits claim that the film is based on Homer’s Odyssey. However, after the film was released the Coen brothers announced that they had never read the Odyssey (Hess 1). Still, there are many correspondences between the two works. The protagonist endures an epic journey fraught with obstacles in his effort to reach his wife before she marries another. The Coens substitute washerwomen for sirens, a Bible-salesman with an eye patch for the Cyclops, a blind railway man for a prophet, and a Baptist congregation for the Lotus Eaters. The Coens also pluck names from the Odyssey, Ulysses Everett McGill takes the Latin form of Homer’s Odysseus. His wife Penny stands in for Penelope and lives in Ithaca, New York instead of Ithaca, Greece. In typical postmodern fashion a story is told of a story with little regard for absolute truth or accuracy to the original. O Brother also draws on American myth and history. In the film, Ulysses and his friends meet up with blues musician Tommy Johnson, who represents the real blues musician Robert Johnson. Tommy Johnson sells his soul to the Devil for the ability to play the guitar, as Robert Johnson is rumored to have done. Though the film draws on reality, it makes no attempt to stick to it. The movie is set in 1937, and portrays Robert Johnson as having just sold his soul and preparing to cut his first record. However, Johnson recorded his first record in 1936, and the rumors of his deal with the Devil reach back farther than that (Downs). George “Baby Face” Nelson is the next historical figure to enter the picture. Again, historical accuracy is purposely thrown aside. Nelson was shot to death in 1934 in Chicago (Geringer). In the film, Nelson is taken to the electric chair in Mississippi in 1937. In a perfect postmodern turn, the Coen brothers have included a character who should have been dead in a period piece. Truth is not central here. Myth is central. The telling of a story is central. Babbitt is a clearly modernist work. The work focuses on the material from start to finish. Babbitt details his morning routine in terms of the objects he uses, specifically mentioning his B.V.D. undershirt (7). On the same page Sinclair Lewis identifies Babbitt as “the modern businessman.” Babbitt’s house is portrayed as a sterile, standardized product of industry: Babbitt looks forward to a society similar to his house. At one point he uses the terms “Ideal Citizen” “Sane Citizen” and “Standardized Citizen” somewhat interchangeably (162-4). This focus on materialism and commerce is telling of modernism. Babbitt is also modernist in that the protagonist’s worldview is fragmented, but the fragmentation is ultimately resolved. Babbitt rides a roller coaster of inner turmoil, as he searches for whatever it is that seems to be missing from his ostensibly successful life, as well as a roller coaster of social acceptance, as his new thinking causes him to act out. However, even while Babbitt muses on the relative values of the social institutions around him, he never questions their basic existence or even necessity. In the end, he is welcomed back into the fold, happily, “In all the activities and triumphs of the Good Citizens’ League Babbitt took part, and completely won back the self-respect, placidity, and the affection of his friends,” (347). This resolution is typical of modernism. Both works examine the rise of the salesman in America. I am using the term salesman here to refer not just to literal salesmen, but to a whole new class of white-collar workers. In both works the movers and shakers are portrayed as white men with, “The gift of gab,” as Ulysses calls it. These men earn money and secure power not through material holdings, but through persuasive speech. Ulysses does not have a buried treasure, but he confabulates one to gain the assistance of Delmar and Pete. Big Dan does not really have a great business venture, its promise is only bait for Ulysses and Delmar. Babbitt does not really know anything substantive about any of the subjects on which he orates, except perhaps sales, but this does not stop him from lecturing on social issues. In both works the salesmen take great interest in their appearances. They have learned to appreciate symbolic value as well as material value. They are modern consumers. Because they have not abandoned the material altogether in their pursuit of the symbolic, they have not yet become postmodern consumers. Ulysses not only uses a hair treatment, he is very particular about his brand of choice, “I’m a Dapper Dan man, goddamn it!” Babbitt revels in the fine appearance of his new cigar lighter, advertised as, “a dandy little refinement, lending the last touch of class to a gentleman’s auto,” (47). At the same time he tells himself he is giving up cigars. Despite being set sixteen years later, O Brother, actually shows this phenomenon in a less developed state. This is because O Brother deals with the rural South, while Babbitt deals with the urban North. The fast talkers in O Brother are gaining power, but they are still looked down upon in some sense. Pete calls Ulysses, “A know it all who can’t keep his mouth shut.” Big Dan T., the Cyclops character, is one of these fast-talkers. He proves to be nothing more than a thug. Pappy O’Daniel rounds out the group of hustlers as a politician who seems to balance good-heartedness with shrewd politics. In Babbitt’s world the salesmen have already seized power. Babbitt wants to bury this old view of the shady traveling salesman and replace it with the moral figure of a Booster. Babbitt’s new salesmen are conformists, while O Brother’s are not. Ulysses is the only salesman shown to have a family, and he is certainly not a good father or husband. These characters lack the faith in the system that the salesmen of Babbitt possess. In the poor South of 1937, they are determined to rise above a failing economy. They aim to accomplish this through individual means, and tailor them to society’s preferences only enough to avoid its wrath. In the prosperous North of 1921, Babbitt and his fellows have every reason to believe they can be wildly successful working in the system. Industry is producing, people are buying, and it is simply their job to hustle out there and sell, sell, sell. They see this as the very purpose of the industry, “The purpose of manufacturing a plow or a brick was so that it might be sold,” (127). The two novels also present different underclasses to accompany their salesmen. Babbitt’s is a modern underclass, made up of laborers supporting the new industrial boom. Many of these laborers are recent immigrants from southeastern Europe. Though uneducated, there is a sense in which they are cosmopolitan and diverse. They know something of socialism and form labor unions. O Brother’s is a traditional underclass, still rooted in agriculture. Over dinner, Pete’s cousin Washington Hogwallop tells of the ill-fortunes of the people they know. The litany includes bank foreclosure, suicide, anthrax, cows that refuse to milk, mumps, and the breakup of a family. In the agricultural South, land is still the seat of economic power. Delmar observes, “You ain’t no kind of man if you ain’t got land.” These people have no appreciation of symbolic value. The material still rules, and it is still the raw material of nature: land. Supporting Works Cited |