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
After Dewey Haik takes power, the inmates at Trianon finally get news of the outside world. Doremus Jessup learns about Mary’s death and the coups. Karl Pascal is growing bitter and impatient, and Jessup can’t stand his bigotry and anger toward anyone who questions communism. One day, Pascal spends an hour complaining about how the Corpos self-righteously believe they’re saving the world, and then another hour explaining why the self-righteous communists really are saving the world. He worships holy communist Russia but complains when anyone praises anything about degenerate capitalist America.
Karl Pascal’s bitter dogmatism reveals the dangerous similarity between communists and fascists: both believe that the best way to improve society is by handing power to violent dictatorships. Pascal is just as certain about his own beliefs as the fascists are about theirs, and he also believes that absolutely anything would be justified in order to build the communist utopia that he imagines. In contrast, Doremus Jessup thinks that power corrupts the people who hold it, and that utopian ideas are dangerous fantasies. If communist revolutionaries seize power to try and create an equal society, Jessup thinks, they will prove no more successful—and no less wicked—than fascists like Windrip.
Themes
Doremus Jessup concludes that the communists are just as bigoted and idealistic as the fascists. The real global struggle today, he decides, is not communism versus fascism, but bigotry versus tolerance (or tyranny versus liberalism). In fact, he firmly believes that keeping “the free, inquiring, critical spirit” alive is more important than just setting up the right kind of social and economic system. The worst part about the Corpo radicals, Jessup thinks, is that they’ve turned good people like Karl Pascal into radicals, too.
Sinclair Lewis uses Doremus Jessup’s interior monologue to present his own case for liberal democracy. Fascists and communists try to impose a single formula on society through force and repression, while liberals embrace “the free, inquiring, critical spirit”—or rationality—to decide political issues through debates that take different perspectives into account. Lewis by no means thought that the U.S. was a perfect, inclusive democracy in the 1930s. But he did clearly think that it was on the right track and would only self-destruct by handing power to fascists or communists.
Themes
Doremus Jessup wants nothing more than to escape. One day, to his surprise, Aras Dilley tells him that Lorinda Pike is plotting to get him out. Dilley makes a hole in the fence and start drinking with the on-duty guard every night, until the guard starts to reliably pass out. One evening in January, he tips Jessup off. Jessup glances at Karl Pascal and Truman Webb, crawls through the fence, and hides in a New Underground furniture van. He remembers that Judge Swan warned that he would be executed if he tried to escape, but mostly he just revels in his freedom. The New Underground hides Jessup in many different places and transports him in many different ways until he reaches a remote farmhouse. Sissy and Lorinda Pike are inside.
Aras Dilley helps Jessup escape simply because Lorinda Pike bribed him to do it. Like most of the other Minute Men and Corpo officials, Dilley is loyal to the government—but only as a mercenary. He has no true principles besides self-interest. Of course, this norm explains why Windrip’s government was so unstable at every level: the selfish, unscrupulous people who agreed to join it eventually found better opportunities elsewhere. In contrast, the New Underground functions in exactly the opposite way. Its members join based on their moral principles, and they stand to lose far more than they stand to gain by participating in the organization. For instance, while the New Underground frees Jessup from Trianon, his links to them also put him there in the first place. Still, for Lewis, this conflict between morality and self-interest is the cornerstone of the fight between democracy and fascism.
Themes
Doremus Jessup is dirty, gaunt, and weak, but alive. Sissy and Lorinda Pike give him a warm bath, fresh clothes, and hot food. He feels like he’s in heaven. He’s a stone’s throw from the Canadian border, and crossing it is far easier now than it was during the family’s first escape attempt. Still, Sissy and Lorinda decide to disguise Doremus by dying his hair and shaving off his beard. He protests, but when they finish, he loves the way he looks. Doremus and Lorinda spend three final days alone in the farmhouse, and then Lorinda and Sissy take him to the border. As soon as he crosses over, he already misses the U.S.
Jessup’s sweet freedom only underscores the horrors of fascism: after his time languishing in the concentration camps, even the most ordinary comforts now seem like extraordinary luxuries to him. Above all, he cherishes the chance to spend time with the two women he loves most. Fascism has torn Americans’ families apart and infused their lives with a constant sense of fear and suspicion, but Jessup’s relationships with Lorinda and Sissy are still completely trusting and authentic. Yet going to Canada will mean leaving them behind.
Themes
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