68 pages • 2 hours read
Sinclair LewisIt Can't Happen Here
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1935A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The novel begins with a meeting of the Fort Beulah Rotary Club in May 1936, seven years after the beginning of the Great Depression. The occasion for the meeting is a pair of speeches, which are to be given by Brigadier General Edgeways and Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch. Doremus Jessup, a Fort Beulah resident and the owner-editor of the Daily Informer is there to observe the event along with his friend and lover Lorinda Pike, who co-owns a tavern outside of Fort Beulah and is an ardent feminist.
Edgeways begins the meeting with a xenophobic speech advocating American isolationism and celebrating the glory of the United States. He is followed by Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch, a tireless anti-feminist and conservative activist, who advocates that women’s right to vote be taken away and that women should retake their rightful place in the home as mothers and homemakers.
Pike criticizes Gimmitch’s remarks; Gimmitch responds by arguing that Americans “need to be in a real war again, in order to learn Discipline! We don't want all this highbrow intellectuality, all this book-learning” (7). Gimmitch then eggs-on Edgeways, who recants his early remarks by advocating for war and expressing admiration for the Fascist regimes in Italy and Germany. Pike attempts to respond, but she is quieted by Francis Tasbrough, the town’s most prominent industrialist.
Jessup intervenes and encourages Pike to apologize. She does so sarcastically, though none of the attendees realize that she is being insincere. As the meeting ends, Tasbrough invites Jessup and several other prominent men to his home for an after-party.
Chapter 2 Summary
Jessup drops his wife, Emma, off at their home and then drives to Tasbrough’s party. Along the way, he reflects on Fort Beulah, where he has spent 57 of his 60 years. Jessup has known Tasbrough, 54, since Jessup defended him from bullies when they were both children. However, they later had a falling-out after Jessup took the side of the strikers during a labor dispute at Tasbrough’s quarry.
Jessup arrives at Tasbrough’s. Also in attendance are the local Episcopal minister, Reverend Falck, and a local banker, RC Crowley, among other prominent men of Fort Beulah. Upon his arrival, Tasbrough tells Jessup that he needs to stop criticizing and playing at his crazy, liberal ideals and join with the other elite of the town to stand against labor leaders. Jessup rejects this and argues that Windrip has a strong chance at being elected due to the popular discontent after seven years of economic depression, particularly if Bishop Prang, a popular radio preacher, endorses Windrip. Jessup also predicts that Windrip will turn into an authoritarian ruler once in power and argues that “[p]eople will think they’re electing him to create more economic security. Then watch the Terror! God knows there’s been enough indication that we can have tyranny in America” (17).
Tasbrough calls this nonsense, and says that it could never happen in America, as they are a country of free men. Jessup retorts by pointing to economic depression, graft, and corruption, as well as various forms of American hysteria, such as radio preachers, xenophobia, red scares, and the KKK, arguing, “why, where in all history has there ever been a people so ripe for a dictatorship as ours!” (18)
RC Crowley says that it wouldn’t actually be so bad if Windrip did turn out to be a fascist ruler, arguing that Windrip only pretends to criticize the banks. Furthermore, Crowley says that Windrip would take their advice once in power, and the country needs a strongman to make it efficient and prosperous again. The attendees, aside from Jessup and Falck, agree with this, but once again state that, “it just can’t happen here in America” (19).
Chapter 3 Summary
As Jessup drives home from the party, he reflects more on his past. He was born in Fort Beulah as the only son of a pastor and grew up reading books. After high school, Jessup went to Isiah College just north of Fort Beulah, and then spent “one glorious year” (20) in Boston. While Jessup loves the opportunities to consume culture in the cities, he becomes exhausted with city life and moves back to Fort Beulah three years after graduation, when his father dies. Jessup then uses his inheritance to buy a quarter interest in the Daily Informer, which he owns by 1936. Jessup is married to Emma, and they have three children: Philip, a lawyer; Mary, married to Dr. Fowler Greenhill, and mother of David; and Cecilia, or “Sissy,” a high-school senior who wants to be an architect.
When he arrives home, Jessup bruises his shins on a lawnmower carelessly left out by his hired handyman, Oscar “Shad” Ledue. Jessup strongly dislikes Ledue, describing him as incompetent and vicious, and thinks frequently about firing him, but also considers it “amusing to try to civilize this prize bull” (23).
Jessup heads to his study, where he reads a letter from an old college professor, Victor Loveland. Loveland, who “had never till now meddled in any politics of more recent date than A.D. 180” (26), expresses alarm at the militarization of the student body. He also expresses fear that he will be fired for opposing this, as the board has passed a measure banning criticizing such military training. Jessup is disturbed by this news, but doesn’t know what to do, other than write a mildly-critical editorial.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
These chapters, which take place over one night in May 1936, establish several of the major characters of the novel, as well as provide insight into the mood of a country ripe for a populist demagogue to take power. While Jessup, the protagonist of the novel, leads a comfortable middle-class existence, the economic context would have been readily apparent to readers at the time. By 1936, the Great Depression would have been ongoing for seven years. GDP contracted by 15% worldwide, and American unemployment peaked at 25%. In the real world, 1936 marked a turning point where the economy finally began to improve, though it would not fully recover until World War Two. However, Lewis’s novel diverges from reality here by portraying instead an authoritarian seizing power and driving the economy further into ruin.
This first night demonstrates that Jessup, though he commands respect, is a man separate from the rest of the rest of the town due to his liberal politics, in contrast to the heavily-Republican elite such as Tasbrough and Crowley. Furthermore, it gives a brief sketch of Jessup’s family life and background; his self-identification as a middle-class bourgeois intellectual is a repeated motif through the novel as he attempts to reconcile his politics. Finally, it establishes Jessup’s initial state as a cynical, detached observer of politics. Though he is one of the few to correctly recognize the threat that Windrip represents, Jessup does little to oppose his rise until it becomes too late.
Most importantly, these chapters tie into the overarching theme of American totalitarianism by demonstrating the political mood of the country. Edgeways and Gimmitch give speeches filled with reactionary conservative politics that advocate international expansionism and rolling back the rights of those perceived as weakening the state. Later, the elite of the town, represented by Tasbrough and Crowley, dismiss Windrip’s policies that would negatively affect them (such as nationalizing banks and industries) by claiming that he is only pretending to support those to win over the common folks, and that if he takes power, Windrip would be a reasonable politician. These chapters also establish a recurring motif throughout the first half of the book, namely that totalitarian rule could never take root in America. While the town’s elite agree that a strongman President would be good for the country, they dismiss the possibility as impossible.
Finally, these chapters introduce two points of conflict that will recur throughout the novel. The first is the relationship between Jessup and Ledue. It becomes clear that the two men dislike each other, but Jessup refuses to fire Ledue, telling himself that he is attempting to civilize him, though it’s implied that Jessup also has some fear of the man. This emphasizes Jessup’s classism, which is repeated throughout the novel, and his cowardice, which he works to overcome. In turn, it also stands in for the larger resentments of the working class towards the professional class, which is a major factor in Windrip’s rise. Loveland’s letter introduces the increasing militarization of the country, which also contributes to Windrip’s rise.
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