Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Flivver King, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Capitalism and Dehumanization
American Idealism and Disillusionment
Misinformation, Media Bias, and Ignorance
Individualism vs. Unionization
Technology and Progress
Summary
Analysis
Rosika Schwimmer, a Hungarian women’s rights activist and pacifist, comes to Ford for help. She describes the war’s horrors and asks him to take action to oppose it. Ford charters a ship and invites other pacifists with the mission of trying to figure out how to resolve the war. In the newspapers, former president Teddy Roosevelt criticizes the peace ship and a Wall Street lawyer who ran against Roosevelt calls Ford a clown. Ford says that the fight to stop the war is necessary despite the “vaporings of editorial-writing comedians.”
Here, Ford starts to become at odds with the newspapers, as he calls out the lack of substance in “editorial-writing comedians.” This only spurs Ford’s desire to hang on to his ideals, even if the top politicians criticize him for doing so.
Themes
