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 35-38Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 35 Summary
After two years as leader, Windrip has steadily become more paranoid and power-hungry. He surrounds himself with yes-men, and suspects anyone who doesn’t sufficiently flatter his ego of plotting against him. Windrip continually increases the number of bodyguards protecting him, though he distrusts them all. He moves out of the White House, leaving his wife there, and into a private hotel suite, where he spends his time indulging in luxuries, playing poker with his bodyguards, and drinking. Windrip begins to feel intense loneliness, as the only people he now trusts are Sarason and Macgoblin.
Meanwhile, as Windrip’s behavior becomes more erratic, Sarason establishes himself as the true power center of the administration. He establishes a clique that reports directly to him, bypassing Windrip, and ingratiates himself with the leaders of large businesses. As Sarason becomes more distant from him, Windrip attempts to win back his attention by giving him gifts and later punishing him by replacing Sarason as High Marshall of the Minute Men with Colonel Haik.
Vice President Beecroft resigns, saying that he can no longer stomach all the killings. Sarason advocates having him killed, but Windrip refuses, fearing criticism, and instead has random concentration camp inmates shot.
At a cabinet meeting in late 1938, Sarason announces that Beecroft has fled to Canada and that there are now large rebellions in the Midwest and Northwest, with these areas demanding secession from the Corpo state. Sarason suggests that “in order to bring and hold all elements in the country together by that useful Patriotism which always appears upon threat of an outside attack” (358), they stage a series of false-flag attacks to be blamed on Mexico, giving them an excuse to declare war and invade. Windrip rejects the plan, fearing that arming the populace would merely allow them to overthrow the government. Sarason insults Windrip’s cowardice and storms out.
Shortly thereafter, Windrip is awakened at night by the sight of Sarason, Haik, and Macgoblin beside his bed. Windrip begs for his life, and Sarason cannot go through with killing him, and so instead orders him exiled to Europe. Windrip, having embezzled over $4 million abroad, retires comfortably in Paris.
The regime declares its loyalty to Sarason, who immediately appoints his young lovers to key positions. Sarason delights in shocking the populace he has come to despise, and begins holding regular orgies in the White House. Haik warns Sarason that his behavior is eroding support among Corpo idealists and the rank-and-file soldiers, but Sarason laughs him off. Macgoblin later attempts to warn Sarason about Haik, who has the support of the armed forces, but he, too, is ignored by Sarason.
After an orgy, Sarason shows up to a cabinet meeting hungover, which draws a rebuke from Haik. That night, Haik leads a group of soldiers into the White House, killing Sarason and his aides. Macgoblin flees to rural Cuba, where he lives out the rest of his life in a small hut.
Haik’s rule is immediately more harsh than that of Windrip and Sarason. He informs the population to no longer expect their promised $5,000 per year, because instead they would "reap the profits of Discipline and of the Scientific Totalitarian State not in mere paper figures but in vast dividends of Pride, Patriotism, and Power” (365). Haik treats the “entire nation like a well-run plantation” (366) and while he cracks down on Minute Men excess, he begins shooting anyone who doesn’t like being treated like a slave.
Chapter 36 Summary
It is now early 1939, and the ban on guests has ended at Trianon. Mrs. Candy comes to visit Jessup and tells him of Mary’s death, the departures of Emma and Sissy, and the coups against Windrip and Sarason.
Over time, Jessup and Pascal have become distant, as the latter becomes less affable and more zealous in his preaching of communism. Jessup reflects that the real struggle isn’t communism against fascism, but rather liberal tolerance against bigotry, and that society needs to preserve “free inquiring critical spirit” (371). Jessup becomes upset that fascism has turned good men like Pascal into equally-dangerous fanatics. Alienated from Pascal, and not able to speak to Julian, and with many of his friends dead, Jessup feels even more alone.
In late January, Jessup is told by Aras Dilley, that he is going to help him escape at the behest of Lorinda Pike. Dilley loosens the boards and barbed wire and gets the night guard drunk, allowing Jessup to escape the camp, where he is then picked up by a waiting van. Jessup is taken through safehouses to an abandoned farmhouse where he is reunited with Lorinda and Sissy. The two women clean and dress him, in addition to dying his hair and shaving his beard. Sissy then returns to Beecher Falls, and Lorinda and Jessup spend the next three days together in the barn. Jessup is then able to easily cross the border into Canada.
Chapter 37 Summary
Jessup spends the next several months working at the New Underground headquarters in Montreal. He’s glad to be able to discuss politics freely now, and is certain that a post-Corpo America would never go back to “government of the profits, by the profits, for the profits” (377) with Trowbridge now advocating a form of socialism and rejecting the assistance of an oil magnate. However, Jessup remains lonely as Lorinda can’t leave Beecher Falls, and Emma refuses to come to Canada. He also finds that Canadians have become sick of supporting the large number of American refugees, and dislikes being forced to live in cramped quarters with other middle-class exiles. Jessup asks to be sent back to America as a secret agent, but his superiors are hesitant, given his age and the inherent danger.
In July 1939, five months after his escape to Canada, Jessup sees that the American papers are claiming that attacks were carried out by Mexican agents across the country. In immediate response, Haik declares war on Mexico and announces that five million civilians will be drafted into service. The draft serves as the last straw and provokes a wide-ranging, popular revolt against the Corpo regime, which takes control of swaths of the Midwest. The rebels include many former Corpo supporters who believed in Windrip’s program but became disillusioned with the regime as they saw it was still “a small gang of criminals armed with high ideals, well-buttered words, and a lot of machine guns” (383).
The rebels do not find much success at first, but in August 1939, General Coon–the Chief of Staff of the Army Regulars–takes the troops loyal to him West, where he declares his support for Trowbridge. With Coon’s troops, the rebels are able to start winning successes against Corpo forces. However, by this point the education system of the country has been so thoroughly destroyed that the revolt slows, as neither the Rebels nor the Corpos are able to formulate a theory of government or establish a functional state.
Jessup is given an assignment from Trowbridge to head back to Corpo-controlled Minnesota to serve as an undercover agent. Jessup “set[s] off on his new task of being a spy and professional hero without even any funny passwords to make the game romantic” (386).
Chapter 38 Summary
Jessup is boarding his train out of Montreal when he meets Lorinda Pike in disguise on the platform. She wishes him farewell and gives him the last news on his friends he might have for a long time: Titus, Julian, Pascal, and Pollikop remain in concentration camps; Father Perefixe continues to run the Fort Beulah cell; Emma and David are living with Philip; Sissy continues her revolutionary work while planning a honeymoon with Julian, once the regime is overthrown; Mrs. Candy now works for Tasbrough and sends regular reports about his activities to the New Underground. Jessup takes his seat and watches Pike as he departs, realizing that none of his friends or loved ones will ever be able to contact him.
The narrative flashes forward to the early 1940s. Jessup now runs a cell of approximately 60 agents who had “converted from fear of M.M.s to jeering” (390). A group of soldiers walk past; Jessup is heartened to see people shouting criticism at them from their windows, no longer afraid to stand up to the regime.
At night, Jessup drives to an isolated farmhouse that serves as his headquarters, then retires in a beachside cottage given to him by two Trowbridge supporters. He dreams of being freed from Trianon and taken into the loving embrace of Lorinda, Emma, Sissy, and Mary. Jessup is awoken from his dream by his host, who informs him that a Corpo posse is en route to capture or kill him. The novel ends with Jessup riding out to another safe house hidden in the woods, to continue his work.
Chapters 35-38 Analysis
This final section of the book, which begins in August 1939 and ends in the early 1940s, completes Jessup’s character arc and demonstrates the inherent contradictions and instability of totalitarian regimes.
The first source of instability is shown as the constant in-fighting that occurs when a small group of people seize total power. In only two years, Windrip, previously gregarious and charismatic, has become a paranoid recluse. Furthermore, he is now so afraid of even his bodyguards and is so sensitive to potential personal insult that he attempts to kill two of them. Sarason, frustrated that Windrip no longer rules in the fashion he thinks is best, orchestrates a coup and seizes power. He, in turn, is quickly deposed by Colonel Haik. In contrast to Jessup’s New Underground cell, which never turns upon each other, the regime is depicted as full of power-hungry backstabbers. As totalitarian regimes operate under the guise of creating a great utopia, it is prone to violence when visions of this supposed greater good begin to come into conflict with each other. Just as totalitarianism is based on violence, violence is also used internally to solve disagreements.
Further, totalitarian regimes are economically mismanaged as they purge anyone with real expertise who may deemed disloyal, such as academics. This culminates in Colonel Haik cancelling the promise to pay $5,000 per year to each family, in effect admitting that the regime failed to reinvigorate the economy as promised.
The final source of instability is that totalitarian regimes always tend towards war in order to solve internal problems. Haik stages false-flag attacks in order to declare war on Mexico in the hopes that this will reignite patriotism and nationalism. However, this backfires, as the institution of the draft (along with the end of the $5,000 promise) causes even idealistic Corpo loyalists to finally abandon the regime and take up arms against it.
This section also highlights the lasting impact that totalitarian regimes have, as while the rebels have some military success, neither side is able to formulate a theory of government or create a new functioning state due to the complete destruction of the education system: Americans are now so unintelligent, they can’t make democracy work.
This section completes Jessup’s character arc as he is freed from Trianon, lives in exile for a time in Canada, and finally returns to American to continue the fight against the regime. After his time in Trianon, Jessup’s romanticized notions about revolution and spy work have eroded and he is forced to witness firsthand the real consequences of all that has transpired. Even after escaping to Canada, Jessup is unable to live the kind of contented easy life that he did at the beginning of the novel, and asks to be sent back to America, despite the great risks. Jessup’s request is finally granted, but in contrast to his earlier work with his family and friends, he goes back alone, not knowing if he will see any of his loved ones again.
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