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
In the same month, Ford issues two new models of the Model A car, but soon after there is another bank crash in Detroit. Ford is the only one with enough money to save them, and so he takes over the banks. Meanwhile, Ford’s workers’ jobs are cut to one or two days a week, and the minimum wage is reduced to $4 a day. Ford still says that the way to prosperity is through high wages, even while he cannot pay those high wages.
Ford recognizes that providing his workers with better wages is the best remedy for economic hardship. And yet he seems not to listen to his own advice: he is more interested in saving the powerful corporations that guard his wealth than the workers who have earned him that wealth.
Themes
Abner looks for work until his legs give out; he then has to beg Hank for money. Milly is bedridden most of the time, and they no longer have money for a doctor or medicine. Daisy runs the house now, though she is unhappy after having a baby that she didn’t want. Instead of achieving her dreams of being a stenographer in an office, now she is married to a poor clerk who only works two days a week. In addition, there are tens of thousands of homeless men and very little relief from the government because the government also does not have money.
This passage paints a bleak picture both of the Shutt family’s disillusionment specifically and Americans’ disillusionment as a whole. Abner, Milly, and Daisy were not able to achieve their bright dreams of working hard, gaining opportunity and prosperity, and leading a happy, wholesome family life. And at large, people recognize how the government’s policies and lack of regulation has failed them as a whole, because people are unable to survive the country’s economic turmoil and the government is unable to help them.
Themes
In 1932, Republicans nominate Hoover again for the presidency, while the Democrats nominated Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the governor of New York State. F.D.R. begins making eloquent speeches over the radio and promises to try a new economic strategy. But the Shutts have sold their radio, and the papers report that F.D.R.’s economic policy would not change the depression. Ford advertises in his plant to vote for Hoover, and Abner does so.
Ford and the media’s influence on Abner’s vote underscore the problem with media bias and ignorance. Even though F.D.R.’s plan is aimed at supporting workers like Abner, he has no way of knowing this because of the way in which the newspapers present F.D.R.’s policies. As a result, Abner continues to vote against his own interests, not recognizing that Ford, too, has a vested interest electing Hoover over F.D.R. and that his interests might not match Abner’s own.
Themes
