"Escape" As A Theme: A Feminist Study Of Sinclair Lewis's Main Street

Sinclair Lewis,the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature,occupies an unshakable position in American literary history.Main Street,the first of Sinclair Lewis' s great success,shatters the idyllic American myth of happy small town life and lays bare the cheap quality of provincial thinking.Critics incline to discuss the artistic features,thematic ideas and cultural narrative of this novel,but rarely interpret the escape theme with feminist theory.This paper intends to analyze the escape theme from the perspective of feminism.Specifically,Beauvoir's feminist critical theory will be used in analyzing Carol's various escapes.As the escape theme occupies an important part in the national culture in the USA,it reflects a dominant mood in American life.Carol's escape not only shows her awakening female consciousness,but represents her resistance to patriarchy and to hypocritical social standards,which inspire those women who are the victims of oppression to seek their freedom and independence.To sum up,this study is helpful to broaden the view of interpreting this novel from the perspective of feminism and to deepen readers' understanding of this brilliant novel.