The publication of "Main Street" immediately caused a sensation in the United States with great subversive power. Lewis extended his critical brushwork to the countryside for the first time. The novel is so true and credible that it shows the hypocrisy and narrowness of the rural concept step by step, and finally the town is deserted, thus breaking the beautiful rural myth in the eyes of Americans and forcing them to start to examine themselves. In Main Street, sinclair lewis mercilessly satirizes and attacks Gezhen's ugly appearance, boring life and narrow-minded people in the town, especially the terrible "village virus" with his keen observation and skillful skills. It must be pointed out that Lewis's attack is universal, and Gezhen is only the epitome of the whole country. Lewis has clearly pointed out in the preface of "Main Street":
"The town in our story is called Goff Grassland in Minnesota. But its main street is an extension of all the main streets. In Ohio or Montana, in Kansas or Kentucky or Illinois, I am afraid that I will meet the same story. Even in the mountains of new york or Carolina, I may hear similar stories. "
At that time, dogmatism in American society was very serious, and all commandments and moral norms were dogmatic. If individuals want to survive in such a society, they must abandon their original values and attitudes and be forced to obey this consistency. In many small towns in the United States at that time, people regarded obedience to the surrounding environment as a virtue, because only obedience would give them a sense of identity and security, and once they left such a group to live or think, they would feel deeply uneasy and even afraid; And this kind of blind obedience makes people lose the instinct of independent thinking and maintaining a distinctive life, and even the true love in the world becomes insincere. The article once described the identity of this town like this:
"Everything around the town is so single and uncreative; People's manners and manners are plain. But if you want to gain the respect of the people in the town, you must be strictly bound in spirit. People here are proud of ignorance. Those who have intellectual or artistic accomplishment, and those who show off their erudition according to what they say, will be regarded as pretentious or morally wrong, and their views will be regarded as heresy and accused. So they are content with the status quo and follow the rules.
Broadly speaking, "this is an indictment of the lifestyle prevailing throughout the United States and in various regions." In the novel, when Carol couldn't stand all this, she chose to escape and finally went to Washington. In Washington, Carol and her son had a busy but relatively quiet time. During this time, she began to think about her past days in a small town. People in it, it is difficult to see through the essence of life. Only when they are outside the world do people begin to think about their lives. Carol began to recall her life in a small town. At that time, all kinds of scenes seemed ridiculous but so reasonable, but she didn't understand the essence of small town life. When she realized the real meaning here, Carol finally returned to the Goff grassland. She knew nothing about the town before, let alone the Goff grassland. When she came back here again, Carol could finally treat everything in the town calmly, but there was still nothing in the town. For this reason, Lewis is regarded as an outstanding American social critic. As Weipa said: "So far, the importance of Lewis mainly lies in its emergence as a social phenomenon ... Lewis is the most successful critic in American society, because his criticism is fair, and he himself is the best proof." Therefore, the profound theme revealed in Main Street has great practical significance and aesthetic value.
Behind this keen criticism is actually the author's deep thinking about American society; According to the Nobel Prize in Literature Jury, Lewis's works can best describe American society in the 1920s, and at the same time, they also embody distinctive American characteristics. Lewis chose an appropriate historical moment to describe small towns in the United States. "Street" has almost become synonymous with conservative life in American society, and his novels vividly show the national character of the United States, thus giving Europeans a brand-new image of the United States. Lewis vividly criticized the "village virus" by depicting the ugliness of ordinary citizens in gotham city, which is also a bad habit in cities and towns all over the United States. The evaluation of the novel reflects the general views of the media on Lewis's artistic achievements. In the 16th chapter of Main Street, Carol said to Guy Borgher:
"I want you to help me think about it together. I think women nowadays are always surrounded by darkness. How did this happen ... what do we want-what do we need? .. I think maybe what we need is a more rational life. We are tired of monotonous work, sleep and death. We hate to see that only a few people can become people with distinctive personalities ... We want everything and will never get it, so we will never be satisfied! "
Carol just showed the theme of this conflict: "Struggle for self-realization". As the protagonist of Lewis's novels, Carol is a powerful image that impresses American readers, because her situation represents the confusion of the middle class in Lewis's era to some extent. The protagonist rebelled against the hypocritical national characteristics of the United States and the dogma that the Americans regarded as a classic. This dogma, as Carol said in her novel, is that to be a good citizen of America, we must agree with every viewpoint prevailing in society. At the same time, the article also shows Lewis's deep thinking on the free life after getting rid of the inherent values of the American middle class.
"After all, not everyone has to come out as a savior, and it is even more impossible to ask everyone to be perfect, but what seems to be wrong with this? It is impossible for each of us to think about changing the world all day because of our dissatisfaction. Looking at the beautiful side of the world optimistically and positively is at least more practical than thinking about changing all this. "
Main Street has helped Americans know themselves, helped the world know Americans, and let us know more about Lewis. This naturally contradictory person is doomed to struggle with contradictions all his life. As Mark Sholler commented in The Story of Lewis ... he likes what he despises; In his life, he is the happiest when he is with those who may be laughed at by him ... He is one of the worst writers in modern American literature, but we can't imagine modern American literature without his works. This is because, without his works, it is difficult for us to imagine ourselves ... He allows us to go deep into our imagination vividly or uniquely. ”。 In the creation of Main Street, Lewis uses metaphorical spatial images to express his subversion of "poetic" rural narrative. Gezhen is a representative of villages and towns modeled by Lewis in his novels according to the prototype of American villages and towns. In the past, the "iron dog image" had an unusual symbolic significance in the hearts of township citizens, representing tradition, order and stability. After the industrial revolution, the symbolic symbol of Gezhen has changed, and there is also the "Red Railway Station". At first, people in Gezhen were full of resistance to trains and railways, thinking that they were monsters made of steel, oak and gravel. Therefore, the railway station in Gezhen is just a humble building, just a small red house. However, since Gezhen opened the railway, trains have brought people an amazing amount of goods, enriched Gezhen's cargo accumulation and promoted Gezhen's economic development. Some adventurous people rely on railways and trains to become enviable millionaires, while people in Gezhen form the concept of worshipping personal wealth. Thus, the "Red Railway Station" naturally became the god and "new god" in the eyes of Gezhen people. Lewis satirizes and criticizes the rural narrative school that is still in fantasy with the anti-poetic rural narrative method. Facing the changes brought by the historical process, they tried to follow the poetic rural narrative to avoid the evolution of rural life, while Lewis warned these writers, including all people in American society, to face reality and wake up from a beautiful vision with a humorous pen.
In the real life of villages and towns, Lewis witnessed all kinds of ugliness of citizens, so he reshaped the thoughts, behaviors and spirits of village residents in Main Street. In order to make his writing more tense, Lewis used metaphors to express the pretensions, mediocrity, vulgarity and ignorance of people in small towns. For example, the women's reading club is a metaphorical object. It is a nominal cultural group composed of young housewives and a unique representative of the upper class in Gezhen. There are many young housewives who consider themselves knowledgeable, accomplished and arty. They will seriously discuss literary issues. For example, when they study English poetry, they only spend a short time analyzing Shakespeare, Byron, Nissen and Kipling, and think that they have achieved the effect of "research". This kind of cultural research is as simple and easy as their housework, as Carol said, "They think they are interested in culture.