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 labor movement spreads all over the country, and the United Auto Workers (the auto workers’ union) is now paying organizers, so Tom Jr. goes into the neighborhoods of the Ford plants and meets workers in their homes. Before long, the police take him into custody and ask him to name the people with whom he’s working. Word soon goes out that Tom is missing, and the union starts to phone every police headquarters non-stop so that no police business can occur as long as they have Tom. When the police refuse to acknowledge that they arrested Tom, union organizers start calling the Ford company to ask about Tom, keeping Ford’s phones busy as well.
Tom’s arrest exposes the police’s corruption. As Sinclair noted in an earlier chapter, they are completely loyal to Ford, and thus make unfounded arrests. Tom is simply meeting with other workers to discuss unionizing, but this is treated as a crime. Tom’s plight also demonstrates the power of unions, even when the workers at Ford haven’t unionized yet. Through collective action, the UAW organizers are able to counter his unjust arrest by stopping up the phones.
Themes
