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
The panics on Wall Street continue, and sales begin to fall. Fear spreads throughout all industries, and profits vanish. The Great Depression lasts through Herbert Hoover’s whole term, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. His solution is to have Congress provide relief to his wealthy friends in the banking industry, but the money simply stays in the banks because no one has the credit to get a loan.
Hoover’s actions continue to expose the failures of the capitalist system. Hoover wants to ensure that his wealthy friends can remain in business, but this comes at the expense of supporting poorer people who don’t have the same kind of safety net.
Themes
Many Americans’ first cost-cutting step is to stop buying new cars. And so a year after the crash, 175,000 of Ford’s workers are unemployed in Detroit alone. Abner keeps his job, but one day he hears that the bank in which he keeps his savings may go out of business. Abner explains to his foreman that he needs to go to the bank to retrieve his savings, but the foreman—who has been instructed to fire 12 men that day—simply fires him. Abner is shocked.
Abner’s firing—simply while trying to get to the bank in a crisis—illustrates the true inhumanity of the system. Abner is simply worried about his savings, but this somehow provides enough justification to fire him without any unemployment benefits or other kind of protection.
Themes
