Before taking up specific illustrations of psychology in modern fiction, I wish to say to amateurs interested in the study of psychology, that frank recognition of their own unconscious minds or of the part of their instinctive life or memories which may have been intentionally or automatically pushed out of consciousness, does not call for digging into the unconscious through elaborate processes of introspection or through invoking the symbolism of dreams. Even were it done, the result would probably reveal nothing more startling than would a faithful account of the undirected thoughts which float uninvited through the mind during any idle hour. For most normal persons such thoughts need neither to be proclaimed nor denied. The involuntary effort toward equilibrium of a normal mind will take adequate care of them. The study of such mental conditions and processes in abnormal individuals, however, is often of great service to the psychologist and facilitates understanding of the workings of both the normal and the unbalanced mind.
I also desire to call attention to the value of an objective mental attitude if one would conserve mental equilibrium and keep the working mind at its highest point of health and productivity. One of the greatest safeguards of mental equilibrium is the desire for objective truth. This is an indication that the mind is seeking for harmony between itself and the external world, and it has a biological basis in the fact that such harmony between the organism and the external world makes for security. The desire for objective truth is a straight pathway between the ego-complex and the ideal of a rational unified self. Parallel with this rational self there is an ethical self which has freed itself from the complexes caused by the conflict between the egoistic instincts and the external moral codes, and uses the rational self to secure harmony of thought and action based on self-knowledge. These two ideals may be pursued consciously and may be made the main support of that complete and enlightened self-consciousness which is essential for the most highly developed harmonious personality.
For a time it seemed to the casual observer that the New Psychology was so steeped in pruriency that it could not be investigated without armour and gas mask. Happily such belief is passing, and many now see in it something more than the dominancy and vagaries of the libido, which convention has insisted shall veil its face and which expediency has suggested shall sit at the foot of the table rather than at the head. It has awakened a new interest in the life of the spirit, which is in part or in whole outside consciousness, and it has finally challenged the statement of the father of modern psychology, Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.”
The religionist advises us to “Get right with God.” At least he is bidding for integration of interests. The humanist in literature who tries to get life going right with its memories is doing the same thing. To be on good terms with memory is happiness; to be on bad terms with it is tragedy. Both are fields for literary workmanship. The more the individual works up his memories in contact with his experiences, the more objective he becomes. On “Main Street” everybody remembers everything about everybody else and thinking becomes objective, with aspects no finer than the daily experiences of the thinkers. There is no chance for romance and adventure because the memories of the few who erred by embarking on adventurous ways are so vivid in the minds of their neighbours, and so often rehearsed by them, as to inhibit the venturesome. Instead of mental equilibrium between vital and struggling interests, there is only inertia. This makes a good theme for a sporadic novel, but it is not a basis for a school of novelists. Mr. Lewis set himself a task that he could perform. On a level where life is richer and memories are crowded out by sensational experiences the task is harder.
It is a mistake to think that psychology is all introspection and conjecture of the unconscious. Mental life in the broadest sense is behaviour, instinctive and intelligent. Few have shown themselves more competent to observe, estimate, and describe such behaviour than the author of “Main Street.” That novel was a study of temperament, a portrayal of environment, and an attempt to estimate their interaction and to state the result. It was recognised by those who had encountered or experienced the temperament and who had lived, voluntarily or compulsorily, in the environment, to be a true cross-section of life focussed beneath a microscopic lens, and anyone who examined it had before him an accurate representation of the conscious experiences of at least two individuals, and a suggestion of their unconscious experiences as well. This permitted the reader, even suggested to him, to compare them with his own sensations and ideas. Thus it was that emotions, sentiments, and judgments were engendered which, given expression, constituted something akin to public opinion. The result was a beneficence to American literature, for the purpose of the writer was known, and it was obvious to the knowing that he had accomplished it.
In “Babbitt” Mr. Lewis set himself a much more limited task. The picture is life in a Middle Western city of the U. S. A. It is as accurate as if it had been reflected from a giant mirror or reproduced from a photographic plate. George F. Babbitt is signalled by his fellow townsmen as an enviable success from a financial and familiar point of view. Nevertheless he grows more discontent with life as prosperity overtakes him. The burden of his complaint is that he has never done a single thing he wanted to in his whole life. It is hard to square his words with his actions, but he convinces himself. So having run the gamut of prosperity, paternity, applause, wine, women, and song—in his case it is dance, not song—without appeasement, he finally gets it vicariously through observing his son who not only knows what he wants to do, but does it. He summarises what life has taught him in a few words: “Don't be scared of the family. No, nor of all Zenith. Nor of yourself, the way I've been. Go ahead, old man! The world is yours!”
Mr. Lewis' purpose was to describe the behaviour of a certain type of man in a certain kind of city, of which the world is full. He gives the former a definite heredity, an education with an amalgam of sentiment, a vague belief that material success spells happiness, that vulgar contact with one's fellows constitutes companionship, and that Pisgah sights of life are to be had by gaining a social elevation just beyond the one occupied. Then he thwarts his ambition to become a lawyer with an incontrovertible outburst of sex and sentimentality, and all his life he hears a bell tolling the echoes of his thwarted ambition. He feels that he has been tricked by circumstance and environment, and that display of chivalry to his wife and loyalty to his chum were wasted. They were indeed, for they had been offered, like the prayers of the hypocrites, in clubs and in corners of the street, and displayed for his own glory.
Materialism was Babbitt's undoing. It destroyed the framework on which man slings happiness and contentment, and which is called morality and idealism. When that went he became a creature of Mr. Karel Capek's creation. Mr. Babbitt, in common with countless benighted parents, cherished a delusion. He believed that filial love, so-called, is an integral part of an offspring's make-up. It is an artefact, an acquisition, a convention: it is a thing like patriotism and creed. One is born with a certain slant toward it and as soon as he becomes a cognisant, sentient organism he realises that it is proper to have it and to display it. In fact he is made to do so during his formative years; thus it becomes second nature. And that is just what it is—second nature. Parental love is first nature. If this were a disquisition on love, instead of on novelists, I should contend that there are two kinds of love: a parent's love for its child, especially the mother's; and a believer's love for God. When Mr. Babbitt wallows in the trough of the waves of emotion because he doesn't get the affection and recognition from his children which is his due, he alienates our sympathy and Mr. Lewis reveals the vulnerable tendon of his own psychology.
Were I the dispenser of eugenic licenses to marry, I should insist that everyone contemplating parenthood should have read the life history of the spider, especially the female of the species, who is devoured by her offspring. All novelists should study spiders first-hand. Filial love, or the delusion of it, furnishes the material for some of the finest ironies and deepest tragedies of life, and as Mr. Lewis adopts it as a medium for characterisation quite free from the teaching of the Freudians who would make it a fundamental instinct, the reader is entitled to expect from him a more reasonable treatment of the subject.
Babbitt's tragedy in the failure of his children's affection is the tragedy of millions of parents the world over. There is hardly a note that would be more sure of wide appeal. But it cannot be explained by the mere fact that, despite the Decalogue, no person of reason will ever “honour” where honour is not merited. It is hard to pity Babbitt because he could not commandeer the filial respect and honour which he had failed to inspire. If this were all, the situation would be simple. But, like countless other deluded parents, Babbitt believes that merely by bringing children into the world he has staked out a claim on their love, just as the child has a claim on the love of those who brought him into the world. And in this belief lies the irony and the tragedy: in the disparity between tradition and fact; between reason and instinct. The tradition or convention that filial love corresponds to parental love probably had its origin in the mind of the parent who would have liked to supply the child with such reciprocal instinct—a love that would transcend reason and survive when respect and honour had failed—but nature has not kept pact with the parental wish. In the realisation and acceptance of the truth lies the Gethsemane that each parent must face who would mount to higher heights of parenthood than the planes of instinct. Hence the universal appeal: the reason why the reader sympathises with Babbitt even while condemning him. He has forfeited the right to what he might have claimed—honour and affection—to fall back upon more elemental rights which were a figment of the imagination. Mr. Lewis' psychology would have struck a truer note if he had differentiated more clearly between the universal parent tragedy and Babbitt's own failure as a parent.