“The shell ought not to be forced on the spirit. It can’t. The bright shell has to grow out of the spirit, and express it.”

Carol Milford is a young, educated, idealistic, and progressive young woman from St. Paul. She is working at a Library, but is unfulfilled at her job. She wants to help change things. She meets a young Dr. from a smaller town- Gopher Prairie, MN. She gets married and settles in the small town, which she hopes to infuse with her progressive ideas. But the townspeople aren’t so enamored of her ways and she runs into a lot of obstacles along the way. She finds some are sympathetic, others unsure, others reluctant, and some outright opposed to her notions. Her husband is sympathetic, but too satisfied with his life to really understand her desire to change it.

The book is about life in a small town, but I think it gives us glimpses into the power dynamics at play between conservative and liberal forces.

The quote at the top is by one of the local ladies, Vida, more sympathetic to Carol’s ideas, but wise enough to know the conservatives can’t be pushed around. Vida tells Carol she’s way off in her approach. Carol counters with “Can’t they see the ugliness?” Vida responds that they don’t see it as ugly. And why should they like what a Boston architect likes? The quote at the top reveals something important. Carol may not like the town as it is, but this is an outgrowth of the people that put it together. Changing the town means changing the people. She may think they’re just unaware of the possibilities, but apparently- they are aware, but they prefer things this way.  

This, in itself, is a bit of a revelation. People have a say in what their life looks like. If we don’t like the way things are, it’s wise to question how things got that way, because they’re likely an outgrowth of choices made…reflecting something deeper. The shell grows out of the spirit, and expresses it.  

There are passages where Carol reflects on the scale of her reform. In one, she notices how dingy her husband’s office is. She decides that it would be important to take care of this small thing right in front of her, rather than try and reform the entire town. At first, her husband says it’s ok as is, but then after she is done, he admits it is better- more welcoming and comfortable- for his patients too.

Carol has a conversation with an older Baptist woman who seems so prejudiced against everyone. Carol is glad to finally get out of there, but then notes that the woman apparently was bent on her own type of reform. Were they essentially the same?

Despite Carol’s desire for reform and beautification, is she really helping the people of her town? She wants to impose her ideas of what is good and beautiful, not actually make the town better in appreciable ways. Vida has an inner dialog expressing her own desire to change, but in small ways she has direct control over, not in Carol’s seeming need to change for the sake of remaking things in her own image for her own benefit, even if she believes it would be to everyone’s benefit if things went in her way.

There is a distinction pointed out by Doc Kennicott that the people Carol despises are people that get things done. Carol sees high art and intellectual pursuit as the pinnacle of life. Another character says that people can appreciate lovely things, but they have to be practical too. Why is high art to be elevated above the daily concerns? What is the point of intellectual pursuit? To Carol, they are simply ‘better’ for reasons she doesn’t seem to understand. She believes them to be better, but to what end? And unless she can articulate that, she won’t be able to convince others of their particular value.

Is there a point to being well-read, other than sounding smart at cocktail parties? Or is it ‘better’ to be practically good at something? Even the stories we read and appreciate are about people doing something, they aren’t about people learning new ideas and discussing them in upper-class settings.  

But the conservative side is complacent, too often resistant for no good reason. The individuals each can tell Carol why she doesn’t need to change the town because it’s already good as it is, will each, in turn, explain why they feel their particular section ought to upgraded before any others. So they all apparently see a need for improvement, until someone outside comes in and tells them the obvious. Then, in the most ubiquitous human characteristic- pride, they righteously explain that their town doesn’t need some outsider coming in and telling THEM how to do things.

After attending a Scandinavian fair and seeing the young women in their traditional dresses and trading what seemed to her like exotic foreign foods, Carol laments that these women will become Americanized into blandness. But of course those same women, in their home countries, would have all been bland in their original settings. It is only out of context that they seem exotic.  

Sinclair writes, through Carol’s eyes, that small towns everywhere labor towards ignorance and mediocrity. He notes the American salesman’s penchant for wanting to see the entire world talking about his wares as opposed to love and courage.  

As the book develops, Carol becomes interested in a young man who has all the qualities she feels like she wants. Her husband understands this and talks to her one evening, explaining that while he may not have the superficial qualities that she wants, in reality, his work as a doctor is trying to heal. HE is the one, home-spun as he might seem, that IS bringing the science into their corner of the world.  

The other man may have sensitivity and talent, but that doesn’t mean that he will actually make good in the world. The likelihood is that he won’t, and then what will your life with him be? Everyone has dreams, some are loftier, some are simpler. The magnitude of the dream isn’t ultimately what will make the magnitude of difference.