Elmer Gantry

by Sinclair Lewis

Genres: Classics

Synopsis

Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis - Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis - is a satirical novel written by Sinclair Lewis in 1926 that presents aspects of the religious activity of the United States in fundamentalist and evangelistic circles and the attitudes of the 1920s public toward it. Reverend Dr. Elmer Gantry, the protagonist, is attracted by drinking, making easy money (but he eventually renounces tobacco and alcohol) and chasing women. After various forays into smaller, fringe churches, he becomes a major moral and political force in the Methodist Church despite his hypocrisy and serial sexual indiscretions. Synopsis The novel tells the story of a young, narcissistic, womanizing college athlete who abandons his early ambition to become a lawyer. The legal profession does not suit the unethical Gantry. After college, he attends a Baptist seminary, and he is ordained as a Baptist minister. While managing to hide certain sexual indiscretions, he is thrown out of the seminary before completing his bachelor of divinity because he is too drunk to attend a church where he is supposed to preach. After several years as a traveling salesman of farm equipment, he becomes a confidante of Sharon Falconer, a popular motivational speaker and evangelist with a "road church" show. Gantry becomes her lover, but loses both her and his position when she and scores of attendants are killed in a tragic fire in her tent tabernacle. After this catastrophe, he briefly acts as a "New Thought" evangelist, and eventually becomes a Methodist minister. He marries a local parishioner, although he is unhappy with her sexual frigidity, and uses her for appearances only. Years later the Methodist leadership awards him a larger congregation in Lewis's fictional city of Zenith. With his power and career in full tilt, Gantry manipulates local, state and national politics which involves police raids against bootleggers and bar patrons. His corruption and power hunger contribute to the downfall, physical injury, and even death of key people around him, including Frank Shallard, a sincere minister who questions the morale purpose of the evangelical church. Shallard, a former associate, is nearly beaten to near death by a lynch squad of Gantry loyalists who were angered by his "atheistic" divergences in Christian teachings.