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

substitute religions, but technology is also frequently presented in spiritual or semi-religious terms: his god is "Modern Appliances" (8), or "the God of Progress" (11). His automobile, this ultimate symbol of technology in the novel, is at the center of Babbitt's substitute theological universe as indicated by Lewis's choice of words in the following and other examples: Babbitt is "a pious motorist" (7), buying gasoline is a familiar "nie" (26), and motoring is among the "sacred and unchangeable sports of Babbitt and Paul Riesling" (56; emphases added). Even Ted and Verona are referred to as "devotees of the Great God Motor, [as] they hymned the patch on the spare inner-tube, and the lost jack-handle" (19). Only a few pages before Babbitt himself was singing, inspired by "the lovely sight" of the skyline and the rhythm of his beloved city, his peculiar secular hymn to the God of Progress: He beheld the tower as a temple-spire of the religion of business, a faith passionate, exalted, surpassing common men; and as he clumped down to breakfast he whistled the ballad "Oh, by gee, by gosh, by jingo" as though it were a hymn melancholy and noble. (15) In addition to characterizing Babbitt through his interaction with machinery, Lewis suggests, throughout the novel, the machine-like qualities of Babbitt himself. He leads a mechanical existence: waking up every day at the same hour, driving routinely to and from his office, engaging after work in all the standardized social activities prescribed for middle-class suburban people like himself. As the plot progresses, Babbitt is beginning to resemble a malfunctioning machine that needs to be fixed, or perhaps even more a malfunctioning cogwheel in the larger machinery of society. In this larger system of interchangeable parts, there is, of course, a danger that the malfunctioning part, Babbitt, will easily be replaced by another identical part as in the case of the real estate deal lost to the competition, the Sanders, Torrey and Wing Real Estate. Mechanization and standardization are the two ultimate technological metaphors employed by Lewis to signify his objections to middle-class lifestyle. In his rebellious state of mind Babbitt himself is eventually beginning to realize how sterile, standardized, and mechanized the existence he leads really is. He deliberately