Symbolism In Sinclair Lewis Main Street

Husband goes to work for long hours, leaves his wife at their new home alone, and this cycle occurs time and time again. While at this new home because she does not have a job the wife, in sad emotion, looks at all of the seasoned furniture that was a gift from her mother-in-law. In Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street excerpt, he uses the literary terms symbolism, imagery, and allusion to present his theme of husbands leaving their wife at home alone.

Symbolism is a distracter to the true meaning of something. For instance, “a window” may represent a melancholy feeling or it can also be a symbol of content with life. In Main Street, Lewis uses several symbols throughout the text to imitate the feeling of loneliness. Symbol’s he uses are “the office”, “the black walnut bed”, and “the window”. (Lines 7-53). “The office” in the context of the text means the want to escape. When Kennicott and his wife got home the first thing that was on his mind was getting back to work and if they were moving into a new house would not it be better for him to stay at home and unpack. That is why it makes sense that he wanted to escape but escaping from what I am not sure of. Maybe he is tired of being around his wife all the time or maybe their marriage is faltering and he has found someone else that is seeing. “The black

For example, if someone said, “I do not like him” that would be an allusion because we do not know who “him” is and they are referring to a person the audience does not know. In Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street, he uses allusion such as places and people. The places he refers to are “St. Paul”, and “Seventh-Day Adventist Church”. The person he uses is “Good Lord”. From a Biblical perspective, we can tell that in his reference to the “Lord” he is referring to God. “St. Paul” is an allusion because it is a place the readers does not know about the same could be said about the “Seventh-Day Adventist