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
Ford continues to dig up dirt about various prominent Jews like William Fox, a movie producer. However, Ford’s investigation leaks to Fox, and Fox begins to make an investigation of Ford in response. Fox consequently instructs hundreds of cameramen to get photos of accidents involving Ford cars and catalogue some of their defects. When Ford learns of this reporting, he immediately stops his stories on the Jews.
Even as Ford feels it is important to print these anti-Semitic stories, there is also a limit to his desire for “the truth.” This counterattack from William Fox illustrates that when someone threatens Ford’s empire, Ford will gladly sacrifice his views and morals in order to maintain his wealth and security.
Themes
Soon after, a Jewish man named Sapiro brings a libel suit against Ford for $5 million. Eventually, Ford admits that he didn’t read what was published in the Dearborn Independent, that the charges made against the Jews in it were untrue, and that he was mortified by the journal. He says that he wants to make amends for the wrong he has done to the Jews. However, Ford also published an autobiography in which he espoused the same ideas—so either Ford did not know what he said in his own autobiography, or the truth did not concern him.
Sapiro’s libel suit against Ford also reveals Ford’s hypocrisy. Rather than admit his own fault in printing misinformation, Ford instead claims that he was ignorant of the stories in the Dearborn Independent. Yet Sinclair pointedly illustrates that Ford did know what was being printed in the journal, and that in fact he was complicit in spreading conspiracy theories.
Themes
