Babbitt · Chapter
Chapter VI explained
Babbitt defends the value of a college degree to his son Ted, arguing it provides social status and class distinction, while also grappling with office tensions when he reprimands salesman Stanley Graff for requesting a bonus.
What happens
Babbitt defends the value of a college degree to his son Ted, arguing it provides social status and class distinction, while also grappling with office tensions when he reprimands salesman Stanley Graff for requesting a bonus. At home, the family debates the purchase of a new car and the relevance of studying Shakespeare, revealing Babbitt's reliance on conventional wisdom and his yearning for escape with Paul Riesling.
Themes in this chapter
Conformity and Materialism
Babbitt values a college degree for its social prestige and uses the car as a marker of family status, reflecting materialistic conformity.
Business and American Capitalism
Babbitt's confrontation with Graff over bonuses and his emphasis on 'Vision' and 'Pep' illustrate the capitalist work ethic and employer-employee power dynamics.
Generational Conflict
Ted challenges his father's views on education and literature, while Babbitt laments the lack of control over his children's behavior.
Characters to notice
- George F. Babbitt
Defends college education as a marker of social class, reprimands Stanley Graff, and frets over family tensions while longing for a trip to Maine with Paul Riesling.
- Theodore Roosevelt Babbitt
Debates the value of college and Shakespeare with his father, expresses desire for a new car, and rushes off to a chorus rehearsal.
- Myra Babbitt
Supports Babbitt's views on education, worries about Ted's social life, and speculates about the propriety of Shakespeare.
- Stanley Graff
Complains about working conditions and requests a bonus for selling a difficult property, but is rebuked by Babbitt.
- Paul Riesling
Mentioned as the friend with whom Babbitt hopes to escape to Maine.
- Henry T. Thompson
Referenced as Babbitt's father-in-law and business partner, whose views on morals and education Babbitt dismisses.
Key passages
“I certainly do protest against any effort to get a lot of fellows out of barber shops and factories into the professions. They’re too crowded already, and what’ll we do for workmen if all those fellows go and get educated?”
Babbitt opposes encouraging working-class men to enter the professions, fearing a shortage of laborers.
Reveals Babbitt's class-based anxiety about maintaining a labor force.
“It would kind of hurt me if you did that, old man!”
Babbitt tells Ted that dropping out of the 'gentlemen class' would personally pain him.
Highlights Babbitt's investment in social status and his desire for Ted to uphold it.
“The kind of fellow that kicks about working overtime, that wants to spend his evenings reading trashy novels or spooning and exchanging a lot of nonsense and foolishness with some girl, he ain’t the kind of upstanding, energetic young man, with a future—and with Vision!—that we want here.”
Babbitt criticizes employees who complain about overtime or prioritize romance over work, asserting that such behavior lacks ambition.
Demonstrates Babbitt's adherence to the Protestant work ethic and his use of rhetoric to control employees.