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
Having sold his car, Abner continues to walk from factory to factory on the chance that someone might be hiring. One day, he notices a meeting going on under a banner that says, “Ford Workers Assemble.” A speaker explains that he was employed at Ford’s for many years and was outraged by the speed-up of the assembly line and the lack of security at the plant. The man’s words encourage Abner, and when the man says that they are organizing a protest march to Dearborn, Abner realizes that he has seen news of this march in the papers and that the man is a communist. Still, Abner is excited by the man’s speech.
Here, Abner gets more acquainted with the labor movement at Ford’s. Rather than thinking what he as a single person can ask for at the plant, he recognizes the benefits that the movement can have for his own life and the lives of the workers collectively. At the same time, he starts to unconsciously understand the media bias surrounding the labor movement. While the news derides the workers as “communists,” Abner sees that their wants are not so different from his own.
Themes
On March 7, 1932, Abner joins other workers on the march to Dearborn. A speaker reads the workers’ demands: jobs for those who were laid off or unemployment benefits until they had work again, and the slowing of the assembly line. The listeners shout in support. Organizers declare that they are unarmed and warn that if anyone commits acts of violence the marchers will forfeit public sympathy, which they do not want to do. The marchers then begin to walk toward the River Rouge plant.
The workers’ demands highlight so many of the basic conditions that were lacking in their jobs at Ford: job security, wage minimums, and safe and humane working conditions. And their commitment to protesting without violence contrasts with Ford’s strategy, where he uses his security guards to brutalize workers who have helped build his fortune and degrade those who are trying to achieve these basic human rights.
Themes
