|
Vergil Gunch, coal dealer, president of the Boosters\' Club and potential Exalted Ruler of the Elks, is at the start of Babbitt everything Babbitt himself would like to be. Gunch is Babbitt at his most extreme--loud, full of jokes, financially successful--but he is not plagued by any of the doubts that burden Babbitt. But because those doubts make Babbitt in many ways a sympathetic character, without them Gunch is in many ways a monster. Once Babbitt begins to rebel against Zenith by supporting Seneca Doane and by having an affair with Tanis Judique, it\'s Gunch he most fears. And for good reason--Gunch is always whispering about him, spying on him. Gunch\'s ugly name signals his moral ugliness.
Gunch does have his good side, as Zenith has its good side. His hospital visits to the ailing Mrs. Babbitt show that friendliness does exist in Zenith, and that it can be a comfort. But Lewis never lets us forget that Gunch\'s friendliness is basically shallow, because it extends only to people who are exactly like himself. Gunch represents Zenith at its meanest. When at the end of the book Babbitt once again becomes his friend, it\'s another token of Babbitt\'s final defeat.
|
