A review by soniapage
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

3.0

There are a lot of "small towns" in our lives with the same characteristics - narrow-mindedness, cliques, back-stabbing gossip, unacceptance of new people and ideas, and pride. I've lived in small towns like this and have encountered it in every office I've worked in. Carol, the main character, finds this out when she leaves Gopher Prairie and escapes to Washington, DC for a "breather" and where she hopes to feel free and liberated again. She returns to Gopher Prairie.

You can't feel too sorry for Carol. I couldn't understand why she married the good doctor in the first place. He wasn't really her ideal and shouldn't the name of the town, Gopher Prairie, have been a red flag as to what she was getting herself into. She thought she would go there and enlighten and change the doctor and the town. She forgot that some people don't want to change and resent those trying to "enlighten" them. These close-minded people like to play "keep out" when they encounter someone unwilling to become just like them.

One resident warns her of "village virus" and she ultimately succumbs.