Lewis's Main Street ridiculed the monotonous, unnatural, or hypocritical life in a small town in Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. As an author, Sinclair Lewis received national and international recognition through his profound display of American life and his criticism of American materialism and pretentiousness.
The main character of this story is Carol Milford who finished her studies from Blodgett College in Minneapolis and then became a librarian for three years in St. Paul until she marries Dr. Will Kennicott who lives in Gopher Prairie, a small Midwest town. After their honeymoon in Colorado, the newlyweds travel by train to Gopher Prairie, a town of 3,000 residents who seem to Carol like lifeless conformists. Main Street is disappointing to Carol, with only a few buildings and no park.
Suddenly, she realizes that she might have made a mistake. She looks for the socialite fun of her city life but finds that the small town is more reserved and intimate than her friends back home. She tries to liven up an evening out and finds herself being lectured to by her husband about the sensitivity of others.
But she's not giving up without a fight. She desired to transform it into a beautiful town with elegance, and attraction. She recruits a drama club that performs a show, The Girl from Kankakee. She also joins a bridge club of young married women as well as a literary society called the Thanatopsis Club but realizes that the programming is drab and dull. Finally, now her ideas are shown some real attention—after all, Carol is a librarian by trade, but the library board is worried about the books as property, and the local librarian doesn't like people to take books, because she like them to be kept clean. On a separate note, a local man is ostracized from the community for the death of his wife and child, even though he didn't cause their death. The town is shown to be capable of fairly brutal judgment.
Carol meets a woman named Vida Sherwin who shares certain characteristics, like that they both married project men, but Vida is conservative where Carol is liberal, and Vida appreciates the simple, domestic life. Her husband comes home from the army and manages the Bon Ton, a store in town. Another of Carol's acquaintances is Guy Pollock, a lawyer whom Carol identifies with. Her attraction to him inspires her to keep trying to improve the town, but it doesn't keep her from failing. Contrast the lawyer with Percy Bresnahan, a local money man who comes on strong to Carol and gets rejected.
Eventually, all the attention from the local men breaks her down, and Carol finds an affair with Erik Valborg, until her husband, Dr. Kennicott, finds out and puts a stop to it, warning Carol of the dangers of life in an immigrant family. Again, the town demonstrates its harsh judgment, this time against young Fern Mullins who indulged an attraction to Cy Bogart, a student of hers. Fern leaves the town, just like all the outcasts before her, and finally, Carol breaks down and escapes the town, leaving her husband.
After a time working in Washington DC, she returns to her husband and they continue their family together. It finally dawns on Carol that her real anger is not toward other people, but to the systematic injustice of the world, and she dreams of a better life for her daughter.
