"Sincere? Hell! So is a cockroach!"
This outburst from Martin Arrowsmith early on the proceedings seems like something of a fake on the part of the author. In retrospect, the observation seems wildly out of place. Arrowsmith is one of American literature’s great heroes of sincerity and in the age of irony may wind up being one of the last.
“She really is a peach.”
A funny metaphor that seems to have been inserted solely for the humor. What’s so funny about it? The she to whom the comparison refers is to a young woman named Orchid.
Artist v. Craftsman
On a larger allegorical interpretation of the novel, it can be said to be about the inner conflict within Arrowsmith over the relative merits of choosing whether to pursue a career as an artist or a craftsman. His ongoing battle over the more noble devotion of his talents to pure research can be equated with that of the artist while obviously the choice to heal the sick and save lives is metaphorically equivalent with being a craftsman who uses artistic skills for utilitarian purposes.
“Barney, our wandering-boy-tonight looks like a necropsy.”
This is a particularly effective simile at conveying the appearance of someone who is clearly not related to the thing being compared. A truly great comparison, but one that can only really be effective when occurring within the milieu of characters working in the medical field. And, of course, it probably helps quite a bit if you know that necropsy is the now-outdated term for an autopsy.
Evil Martin
Sinclair Lewis also wrote the definition of the exposure of the corruption and hypocrisy of the residents of small towns and clearly the feeling toward them was also at work in Arrows. Martin rises to great heights of popularity after settling into Wheatsylvania, but the small town grapevine conspires to bring him down. And the downfall transmitted over that grapevine is framed in metaphorical term so that “while Martin was at the height of his prosperity and credit as a physician, along the Pony River Valley sinuated the whispers that he was a gambler, that he was a "drinking man, that he never went to church; and all the godly enjoyed mourning, `Too bad to see a decent young man like that going to the dogs.’"
