The Story Archive

It Can't Happen Here

Sinclair Lewis · 1935 CE · Novel · Modern / American · Modernist

A folksy senator promising every household five thousand dollars a year wins the 1936 election, and within months has a uniformed corps of Minute Men, a Congress reduced to applause and camps for the people who laughed at him. Doremus Jessup, the elderly liberal editor of a Vermont newspaper, goes on printing what he thinks until printing it becomes a crime. Written at speed while American demagogues were gathering audiences of their own.

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Attributes

Genre
PoliticalSatireThriller
Theme
Power & CorruptionFreedom vs FateIndividual vs SocietyWar & Violence
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Villain / TyrantEverymanRebel / Outlaw
Plot structure
ChronicleTrial
Symbol / motif
The PrisonThe Book / ManuscriptThe Mask
Conflict
vs Societyvs Person
Mode / tone
SatiricalIronicRealist
Culture / tradition
Modern / American

Closest analogues