1. Trace the activities of each of the following members of Digamma Pi throughout the novel, including their influence on the career of Martin Arrowsmith and upon the development of the plot: Ira Hinkley, Clif Clawson, Angus Duer, Irving Watters. 2. Mention five doctors who strongly influence the career of […]
Read more Study Help Essay QuestionsCritical Essays Satire, Realism, and Local Color in Arrowsmith
Satire holds persons, modes of living, or institutions up to ridicule with the intention of making people laugh so that a change or reform can be brought about. Arrowsmith is full of satire of the various strata of society familiar to Sinclair Lewis. Always a radical, always probing the wound […]
Read more Critical Essays Satire, Realism, and Local Color in ArrowsmithCritical Essays Technique of Telling, Style, Setting of Arrowsmith
The story is told in the third person, the central figure being Martin Arrowsmith, though Gottlieb occasionally takes the center of the stage. The narrative moves for the most part in a straight line chronologically, with few flashbacks but many changes of scene. The characters are the most lifelike that […]
Read more Critical Essays Technique of Telling, Style, Setting of ArrowsmithCritical Essays Theme, Plot, and Structure of Arrowsmith
The theme of Arrowsmith is devotion to work as typified by Martin’s absorption in pure science. The plot of Arrowsmith, though somewhat rambling, is the best organized of all the Lewis novels. S. N. Grebstein, in Sinclair Lewis (1962), comments that the book’s narrative component is superior to that of […]
Read more Critical Essays Theme, Plot, and Structure of ArrowsmithSinclair Lewis Biography
On January 10, 1951, Sinclair Lewis died in a clinic on the outskirts of Rome, less than a month before his sixty-sixth birthday. In thirty-seven years, he had written twenty-one novels, many short stories, a few plays, and some poetry on varied themes. Best known for his novels, Lewis wrote […]
Read more Sinclair Lewis BiographyCharacter Analysis Joyce Lanyon Arrowsmith
More sophisticated than Madeline and of higher social and financial standing is Joyce Lanyon, Arrowsmith’s second wife. The way in which she wins his esteem recalls the role of Kate Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer. Joyce in a gingham dress cooking and cleaning in the West Indies is a […]
Read more Character Analysis Joyce Lanyon ArrowsmithCharacter Analysis Madeline Fox
Arrowsmith learned about women from his first love, Madeline Fox. She is the upper middle-class university student, preparing to teach English, who, once Martin is engaged to her, undertakes at once to improve him. Her constant criticism of his slang, his manners, and his way of life becomes tiresome, although […]
Read more Character Analysis Madeline FoxCharacter Analysis Irving Watters
One year ahead of Martin in medical school, Irving Watters appears as a prominent practicing physician in Nautilus, and it is he with his wife who introduces Martin and Leora into “Nice Society.” Watters is just as dull as ever and splits with Martin because the latter insists on sanitary […]
Read more Character Analysis Irving WattersCharacter Analysis The Reverend Ira Hinkley
Older than the other members of Digamma Pi, but bent on becoming a medical missionary of the Sanctification Brotherhood, Ira Hinkley realizes his ambition in the West Indies and dies of the plague. Obnoxious to Martin in college and in later life, Hinkley is a forerunner of Elmer Gantry, who […]
Read more Character Analysis The Reverend Ira HinkleyCharacter Analysis Angus Duer
Another member of Digamma Pi, Angus Duer is hard and keen, as the name implies. At the top of his class both in college and medical school, he is soon head of Rouncefield Clinic, in Chicago, where everything is cold efficiency for financial gain. He is satirized along with Clawson […]
Read more Character Analysis Angus Duer