The Story Archive

Main Street

Sinclair Lewis · 1920 CE · Novel · Modern / American · Modernist

Carol Milford, a college-educated librarian from the city, marries a country doctor and arrives in Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, intending to make it beautiful. The town receives her reading circles, her theatricals and her civic schemes with the placid certainty that it is already the finest place on earth, and the few allies she finds are the ones it has already marked out. Lewis's first success, and the book that made small-town America a subject for satire rather than sentiment.

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Attributes

Genre
SatireComedy
Theme
Individual vs SocietyTraditionIdentity & SelfThe American Dream
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
HeroineEverymanRebel / Outlaw
Plot structure
Ironic ReversalEpisodicExile and Return
Symbol / motif
The HouseThe Seasons
Conflict
vs Societyvs Self
Mode / tone
SatiricalRealistIronic
Culture / tradition
Modern / American

Closest analogues