Main Street

Sinclair Lewis

Main Street — Carol Milford grows up in Minnesota, attends Blodgett College near Minneapolis, then moves to Chicago to study library work. Having experienced big-city life and culture, she starts work as a librarian in St. Paul. She soon meets Will Kennicott, a small-town doctor, and the two get married and move to Gopher Prairie, Kennicott’s home town. Carol, inspired by big-city ideas, soon begins chafing at the seeming quaintness and even backwardness of the townsfolk, and their conservative, self-satisfied way of life. She struggles to try to reform the town in her image, while finding meaning in the seeming cultural desert she’s found herself in and in her increasingly cold marriage.