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
American magnates across all industries adopt Ford’s policies of mass production and low prices. Journalists and economists both agree that with this strategy, there can never be another depression or poverty. Ford has developed 53 different industries and perfected the process for making cars. The Shutt family is also enjoying success: Abner buys a better car and they become a ”two-car family,” which is a great distinction, at least according to advertisements.
Ford’s innovations have both revolutionized people’s lives, giving them greater mobility, and revolutionized American industry in providing a model for massive profits. However, even as it brings some prosperity to both Ford and Abner, Sinclair hints at the fact that this system will not always work. Assuring readers that there can never be poverty—particularly as the book was published in the wake of the Great Depression—is clear dramatic irony critiquing this belief and these policies.
Themes
John finishes trade school and gets a job in Ford’s factory as a welder—a skilled job that pays $8.75 a day. In less than a year, he gets a promotion. Meanwhile, Hank finds success as well—though he does so smuggling alcohol into Detroit from Canada. Abner chooses to remain ignorant about Hank’s affairs, but Abner is glad when Hank comes home with a bit of extra money for Milly. The only person who really knows about Hank’s work is Daisy; he confides in her that the police and politicians are all crooked, and that anyone can be bribed.
Abner’s sons continue to illustrate dual means of achieving the American Dream. On the one hand, John is able to go to school, work hard, and build on the opportunity that his father gave him. However, Hank shows that it’s just as easy to achieve prosperity and security by abandoning one’s morals, and even Abner finds it easy to overlook criminality when it benefits him and Milly.
Themes
Daisy, meanwhile, is studying at a business college so that she can become a stenographer and marry someone from a higher class, and Tommy is a quarterback on the football team in high school. One day a college scout comes from the state university to try and recruit Tommy. Abner is amazed that his son might be able to go to college, and he thinks that America really is the land of opportunity.
Tommy and Daisy also reinforce Abner’s belief in the American Dream, because Abner recognizes that they, too, can rise beyond his standing in life, whether through marrying someone in a higher class or becoming the first person in the family to attend college.
Themes
