An Analysis Of Main Street From New Historicism Perspective

On November 5,1930, Sinclair Lewis was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, which had never been given to American writers before. The award not only means that Lewis's own achievement has been accepted, but also symbolizes that the special American literature has been established in the international literary world and American literature has given up the standard based on European literary tastes. Lewis's achievements mainly lie on the five novels published in the 1920s, among which Main Street has become the turning point of his literary career and marks the beginning of his success. The publication of Main Street in 1920 has turned out to be "'the most sensational event in the twentieth-century American publishing history" (Schorer,1961:322).The thesis aims to apply the most important concepts of New Historicism-"Historicity of Text and Textuality of History" to analyze the relationship between Main Street and its historical context. The analysis is carried out concentrating on the relationship between the key three aspects of Main Street and their respective related historical context. They are, respectively, the character, the setting, and the plot of the novel. During the period that Lewis is creating Main Street, American women's movement for suffrage has reached its climax, which is closely connected with the main character's portrayal as a female. And the story has happened in a Mid-western small town in America. The glorification of the small towns in the traditional culture has concealed the real image of the small towns that are neat, clean, kind, friendly, simple and peaceful in Americans'minds. While the small town in Main Street is just the opposite that is ugly, conservative and gossip-filled and so it destroys the myth of small towns completely. In such a small town, the main character's dream of reforming the small town has vanished, which makes her disappointed and bewildered. Her rebellion and bewilderment reveals the changing process of the Lost Generation's attitude towards American culture around WWI.By analyzing the mutual relationship between the text and its historical context, it can be concluded that Main Street is the production of the special historical context, and the publication of Main Street has exerted a profound influence on the historical context and offered the readers a clearer understanding of some historical phenomena in America.