Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in It Can’t Happen Here, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
American Fascism
Liberalism and Tolerance
Morality and Resistance
Political Communication and Mass Media
Summary
Analysis
Christmas at the Jessup household is full of fear and mourning. The day before, Shad Ledue comes to the house and asks about Doremus Jessup’s connections to Karl Pascal. Mary calls Ledue a murderer and threatens to kill him. Louis Rotenstern and Buck Titus come over to spend Christmas with the Jessups, but Aras Dilley visits after dinner and drags Rotenstern away for questioning. The next day, Jessup learns that the Corpos have sent Rotenstern and the hardware seller Raymond Pridewell to Trianon. Jessup realizes that he’s next, and he decides that he should quit the Informer before he gets arrested.
Fascism even ruins Christmas: the Jessups spend the holidays full of worry, because they know that their very survival is on the line. But when Doremus Jessup realizes that he’s probably going to the camps no matter what, his fear actually fades away. Mary has undergone a similar shift, fearlessly criticizing the government because, with her husband already dead, she feels that she has nothing left to lose. Put differently, the more desperate a tyrannical government makes its citizens, the more likely those citizens are to fight back.
Themes
Professor Victor Loveland has returned from the labor camp to work as a quarry clerk. He tutors the jeweler Clarence Little, who always wanted to learn Greek but couldn’t afford to go to college. But when a plainclothes Minute Men officer overhears them complaining about how hard life has become under Windrip, he drags them to the courthouse to be tortured, then sends them to the Trianon concentration camp. Lorinda Pike helps Mrs. Loveland and her children get back on their feet. Meanwhile, the county gives several poor, loyal farming families land on Mount Terror and moves them into Henry Veeder’s house. Veeder complains, so he ends up in the camp, too.
Because Windrip gives every Minute Man the absolute and arbitrary power to send others to their death, people like Loveland, Little, and Veeder can be imprisoned simply for saying the wrong thing or crossing the wrong person. As a result, they cherish their scarce freedoms. Indeed, Loveland and Little’s tutoring sessions prove that people can still salvage meaningful lives under tyranny—even if their imprisonment shows that this opportunity is never guaranteed, as it can be under a liberal democracy.
Themes
Doremus Jessup marches into Shad Ledue’s office to quit the Informer, but Ledue doesn’t let him. In fact, Ledue says that the only reason he hasn’t sent Jessup to Trianon is that he loves seeing Jessup work as Staubmeyer’s lackey, especially since he was Jessup’s hired man for so many years. So, Jessup drives to Hanover and personally tells the “pale and hesitant and frightened” Commissioner Reek that he wants to quit. Reek agrees—he even offers to hire Jessup on the newspaper he owns. Jessup wonders if Reek is turning against the Corpos, or just afraid of losing his job. Nevertheless, after 37 years at the Informer, Jessup officially quits.
Shad Ledue foils Jessup’s plans just because he can—he even admits that his decisions are driven by personal grudges and loyalties, and not by any ideology or clear political goals. Meanwhile, Reek’s distress shows how a bureaucracy built on this kind of arbitrary power inevitably backfires: Reek is clearly worried about what will happen if other officials turn against him. This shows that even the Minute Men and Corpos face the same terror and uncertainty as ordinary people like Doremus Jessup, because they know that their colleagues in the government have strong incentives to betray them.
Themes
A few days into retirement, Doremus Jessup hatches a plan. But he only tells Julian Falck, since it will involve some “high treason.” He wants to contact the communists—even though he disagrees with their ideology, they’re the boldest resisters around. Falck agrees to talk with Karl Pascal next time he visits Trianon with Dr. Olmsted. Two days later, Falck tells Jessup about the concentration camp. It stinks of human excrement and is full of defeated men, who live six to a 12-foot by 10-foot cell. Karl Pascal, who has a huge scar on his face, passed along the name of a man in Hartford. Henry Veeder doesn’t recognize anyone, and he twitches and jumps whenever there’s an unexpected sound.
After passively disagreeing with the government for a year, Jessup finally decides to dedicate his life to the active resistance against it. He tries to contact the only organization he knows that shares his strong opposition to Windrip. He hopes that he will be able to contribute to their effort, even if he doesn’t share their ultimate goal of building a communist society. Meanwhile, Julian Falck’s description of the concentration camp shows what awaits Jessup if Shad Ledue finally decides to come after him. Again, Lewis describes these deplorable conditions in order to remind his readers that fascism’s worst atrocities can happen in the U.S.
Themes
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The man in Hartford sends Jessup to New Hampshire, Boston, and then finally the Eastern headquarters of the Communist Party, which is in a nondescript Connecticut farmhouse. An old woman opens the door, and when he says he’s visiting Ailey, Bailey, and Cailey, she lets him in. He sits and reads a dictionary while he waits. Bill Atterbury, a famous union leader and the current Party secretary introduces himself as Mr. Ailey. In a back room, Jessup also meets the Russian who calls himself Mr. Bailey and Joe Elphrey, the millionaire economist and banker’s son who calls himself Mr. Cailey. They ask if Jessup would be willing to follow difficult orders, but when Jessup starts to explain that he has different goals and mentions Walt Trowbridge’s name, the men get angry at him, so he leaves.
Jessup tries and fails to dedicate his life to the resistance. The communists are so orthodox and intolerant that they refuse to engage with anyone who doesn’t share their views—even though they clearly need the help. By mocking these stuffy, impractical communists, Lewis suggests that activists should focus on immediate policy objectives (like stopping fascism) rather than long-term political ideals (like the right type of communist utopia to build once the revolution is over). While Jessup is forced to look elsewhere for his new political movement, he also sees that the communists probably wouldn’t have accomplished much, anyway.
Themes
Doremus Jessup hates retirement. He can’t stand wandering around the Fort Beulah shops, pretending to enjoy golf, or spending all day at home, which bothers Emma. (She even encourages him to go visit Buck Titus and Lorinda Pike.) Once, Jessup visits the Informer offices, and he sees that Doc Itchitt has effectively taken over the paper. Otherwise, Jessup just waits for something to change.
Jessup’s idleness and anxiety in retirement resembles his emotional state at the beginning of the novel, before the election. Just like in that period, when he felt sick about Windrip’s rise, he again feels like the world is collapsing around him, but he’s powerless to stop it. And unlike Emma, he cannot bear to simply look the other way.
Themes
In February, a man who claims to be an Albany insurance salesman named Mr. Dimick starts to follow Jessup around, day after day. One night, he visits Jessup’s house, explains that he’s from Trowbridge’s New Underground, and tells Jessup to call the paper salesman Mr. Samson if he wants to join. Jessup calls Samson immediately and signs up.
At long last, Jessup gets the chance to join a large, well-organized movement and dedicate his life to fighting fascism. So far, he has tried to operate alone, but he long ago recognized that one-off newspaper editorials will do little to shift public opinion against Windrip unless they’re part of a coordinated national campaign. The New Underground is this campaign: it has the resources to seriously challenge Windrip’s claim to power.
Themes
