Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2001. [Vol. 7.] Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 27)

Studies - Zoltán Simon: The Image of Technology in Selected American Novels of the 1920's

iearned one good realistic-sounding phrase, and used it over and over, with a delightful feeling of being technical and initiated. (58) Babbitt may be seen here as epitomizing one of the predicaments of modern twentieth-century existence: too far removed from an immediate contact with his material environment, making "nothing in particular, neither butter, nor shoes, nor poetry" (6), he is stuck with a blind faith in progress and technology without comprehending the entirety of his situation and the potential dangers inherent in the kind of existence he leads. The most prominent and symbolically most complex piece of machinery Babbitt (and his family) is seen interacting with in the novel is undoubtedly his automobile. The car, an extension and an expression of his own personality means "poetry and tragedy, love and heroism" to Babbitt: "The office was his pirate ship but the car his perilous excursion abroad" (23). He is noted to take good care of his automobile

—little wonder since it is one of the most visible status symbols in his possession. He even takes his car for the three-and-ahalf-block ride from his office to the Athletic Club

—an ultimate example of wastefulness, inefficiency, and what Thorstein Vehlen would call "conspicuous consumption." The automobile is also a frequent topic of conversation in the Babbitt household, in one of the early scenes Babbitt gets the whole family excited by announcing that he was "[sjort o' thinking about buying a new car" (62). The discussion about the practical advantages of sedans over open cars eventually boils down to "everybody's got a closed car now, except us" (63), which allows the sarcastic narrator to remark that "in the city of Zenith, in the barbarous twentieth century, a family's motor car indicated its social rank as precisely as the grades of the peerage determined the rank of an English family" (63). Having a car is not primarily about transportation

—it is about social class. Such a misuse of technology originates from a misunderstanding of it, just as in the case of the scores of gadgets Babbitt accumulates. Babbitt's relationship to technology could be characterized as a mixture of self-righteous pride in achievements he has no real part in on the one hand, and a spiritual reverence stemming from his ultimate lack of understanding of the workings of technology on the other. Business (or his peculiarly distorted business ethic) is one of his 51