![]() ![]() " See Humanitas (88)) values that went hand in hand with promiscuity, bacchanalia, fox-trotting, and jazz. According to the novellas as well as the non-literary texts under discussion, immigration brought with it alien and anti-puritan (derived from Puritanism or more precisely " Reformed Protestantism. These predicaments, however, were not without consequences. Immigration, urbanization, crime, racketeering, and bootlegging are only a few of the many crises that befell America in 1920s. ![]() Comparisons between Lewis' treatment of urban and rural spaces in his wider body of novels is also discussed, and the deliberate difficulty in defining isolated urban and rural cultural spaces in his works." ![]() This is done through an analysis of the novel's contemporary reception in rural and urban America, as well as a critique of protagonist Carol Kennicott and her problematic urban pretensions. Therefore, this paper poses the argument that Main Street, rather than attacking small-town America, is as readily a critique of urban culture in 1920s America. However, it is my contention that Lewis never meant for his work to be seen as a criticism of rural America, but American provincialism as a whole, found readily in both urban and rural communities. Situated in the fictional small-town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, popular readings of the novel came to view Lewis' work as a criticism of rural America. "Sinclair Lewis' hugely successful novel Main Street became a benchmark work that highlighted the urban and rural divide of 1920s America. ![]()
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