CliffsNotes on Lewis' Arrowsmith

Cliff Notes

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• eBook ISBN: 9780544179677
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

Chapter I

Summary

In a flashback fifteen lines long, Sinclair Lewis recites an episode from the life of the great-grandmother of his hero, Martin Arrowsmith. As a motherless girl of fourteen, the great-grandmother has chosen to go on westward in a wagon with her sick father and her tattered brothers and sisters rather than to return to their relatives in Cincinnati.

Fourteen-year-old Martin Arrowsmith, son of the owner of the New York Clothing Bazaar, is reading Gray’s Anatomy in Doc Vickerson’s office in Elk Mills, in the state of Winnemac. The year is 1897.

Martin is the unpaid assistant of Doc and takes charge of the office whenever Doc makes a call. Although Martin reads steadily all afternoon from the section on the lymphatic system, he also enjoys exhibiting to his gang the dreadful and fascinating skeleton with one gold tooth when Doc is absent.

Doc Vickerson’s three ill-kept rooms—one of them his office—are on the second floor of the building also containing the New York Bazaar. They are a challenge and a “lure to questioning and adventure” for Martin Arrowsmith.

Although Doc Vickerson is sober upon his return, he does not remain so long. Thrice gurgles of Jamaica rum make him garrulous. He commends his young assistant for reading Gray and advises him to “get training” in basic science in order to become a “leadin’ physician” earning five thousand dollars a year. Wishing to give Martin something to start his training, Doc holds out his beloved magnifying glass, used for years in botanizing, and watches the boy slip the lens into his pocket.

Analysis

This introductory chapter brings out the unflagging will power, the courage, and the spirit of adventure possessed by ancestors of the hero of the novel, Martin Arrowsmith. These characteristics are also apparent in the great-grandson, who is to show the pioneering spirit in his own field, medicine. This brief incident arouses interest in the reader and makes him wish to go on with the story.

Lewis introduces not only the hero, as a teenager already a devotee of medical science, but also the slatternly, drunken, but dedicated Doc Vickerson, the first of numerous medical men who are to influence the life of Martin Arrowsmith. The sordid, unsanitary office and living quarters are described with Lewis’ own brand of realism. The characters are also true to life.

Doc Vickerson is characterized as “a fat old man and dirty and unvirtuous” and also as “a gray mass of a man with a gray mass of mustache.” Yet he feels that his own life has been misspent and that he has wasted time collecting a scientific museum which no one wants to see. He hopes for better things for his young assistant, who should read not only Gray’s Anatomy, the Bible, and Shakespeare, but should also attend college before entering medical school. The magnifying glass represents the boy’s spirit of investigation, so important in the years that now lie before him.

The first chapter gives the Middle-West setting of the novel and introduces the determined character of Martin Arrowsmith, already absorbed in medical interests.

Though perhaps not a typical doctor of his time, Doc Vickerson is yet able to fire the ambition of his young protégé and to advise him about preparation for the future. The sordidness of the background is typical of Lewis’ realistic point of view.

Chapter II

Summary

The mythical state of Winnemac, bounded by Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, is half Eastern, half Midwestern, with Zenith, its largest city, surrounded by fields of corn and wheat. The University of Winnemac is at Mohalis and has a student body of twelve thousand. Young doctors of philosophy give rapid instruction in courses ranging from Sanskrit to department-store advertising. Graduates of the university, both men and women, are expected to “lead moral lives, play bridge, drive good cars, be enterprising in business, and occasionally to mention books, though they are not expected to have read them.”

When Martin Arrowsmith enters Winnemac University in 1904 at the age of twenty-one, he is one of only five thousand students. Doc Vickerson is dead and so are Martin’s parents, who have left him barely enough money to finance his medical education. His idol is Professor Edwards, known as “Encore,” head of the chemistry department. Dr. Norman Brumfit, instructor in English, and Professor Max Gottlieb are also introduced, the latter indirectly through characterization by his colleagues. Martin is impressed by the thought of Gottlieb, different from the others, working alone at night in a laboratory, contemptuous of academic success.

Martin’s first meeting with Gottlieb is detailed in this chapter. An academic graduate, who has followed Doc Vickerson’s advice to obtain training in the basic sciences, Martin feels somewhat superior to his fellow medics, most of whom have only a high school diploma before entering medical school. He is therefore disappointed and indignant when Gottlieb refuses to accept him as a student of bacteriology, saying that he is too young and that he should come back next year, after he has taken physical chemistry.

Two of Martin’s fellow students, who are to appear and reappear in later chapters, are introduced here. The Reverend Ira Hinkley is going to be a medical missionary, representing the Sanctification Brotherhood. Clif Clawson, the class jester, irritates Martin. The cadavers on which the medical students work are callously christened “Billy,” “Ike,” and “the Parson.”

Although Martin had been a “barb” in college, having belonged to no Greek letter society, he is persuaded in medical school to join Digamma Pi. From this group, though rough and amiable, had come the honor students for the preceding three years. New members in addition to Martin are Ira Hinkley, Angus Duer, Clif Clawson, and “Fatty” Pfaff. Initiation includes smelling asafetida.

Martin’s roommates in the down-at-the-heel Digamma Pi residence are Clif Clawson, Fatty Pfaff, and Irving Watters, a serious but dull second-year medic. Martin likes Clif Clawson best, who in spite of his clowning is more companionable than the others. Martin detests Ira Hinkley, pities Fatty Pfaff, and fears the brilliant Angus Duer, who listens to the jabbering of his fraternity brothers in superior silence.

Analysis

Satire is strong in the description of Winnemac, particularly of its university, which, like the Ford Motor Company, produces standardized products with interchangeable parts. Though they may rattle a little, these products are expected by 1950 to have grown in numbers and influence until they have created a new world civilization: conformist, unimaginative, and dull.

Sinclair Lewis is very skillful in presenting Professor Gottlieb through the eyes of his co-workers, emphasizing the wide difference between the real scholar and the conventional ones. Martin’s interest in Gottlieb’s lonely laboratory work foreshadows events to be developed in later chapters. Gottlieb’s poverty and aloofness as well as his devotion to science are in contrast with the easygoing sociability of the other two professors.

The character of Gottlieb is further developed as the reader meets him in person instead of through the opinions of others. His warm German accent, his refusal to accept a half-prepared student in whom he is no doubt already interested, and his ascetic mode of living are all skillfully handled to arouse reader interest. Martin, too, is growing mentally and emotionally and is beginning to wonder if Encore Edwards knows everything, after all.

There is satire in the portrayal of twenty-nine-year-old Ira Hinkley, the “romping optimist who laughed away sin and trouble.” Lewis was already planning a criticism of the clergy which was to materialize in Elmer Gantry (1927). Both Hinkley and Clawson reappear from time to time as Arrowsmith develops.

More of Martin’s contemporaries are initiated into Digamma Pi and are to influence his future. Angus Duer is a brilliant and determined student, having been class valedictorian in college. “Fatty” Pfaff, who looks like “a distended hot water bottle,” is the butt of many a crude joke.

A new member of Digamma Pi, Irving Watters, is introduced and characterized as “smilingly, easily, dependably dull.” New light is also thrown on Martin’s other roommates, and details to be recalled as the tale progresses are inserted. In preparation for the profession to which he had looked forward all his life, Martin finds “irritation and vacuity as well as supreme wisdom.”

Chapter III

Summary

Two more teachers in the medical school of the University of Winnemac are introduced: Back Bay Bostonian Dr. John A. Robertshaw, professor of physiology, and Dr. Oliver O. Stout, professor of anatomy. Both are erudite but colorless men. Members of Digamma Pi, thirty in number, aid each other in memorizing long anatomical lists of nerves and muscles while devouring their meals.

Clif Clawson, always the practical joker, drops a pancreas into the hat of a visiting banker on tour of the university, much to the chagrin of Dr. Stout and the secretary of the medical school. Reverend Ira Hinkley, who witnesses the act, threatens to expose Clawson but is dissuaded by Martin and Angus Duer.

Martin’s two companions, Clif Clawson and Angus Duer, show him different worlds in the city of Zenith. With Clif, Martin drinks beer and discusses unfavorably various campus practices and personalities. With Angus Duer, Martin attends a concert of classical music and begins to realize his deficiency in knowledge of literature, music, and art.

Madeline Fox, “a handsome, high-colored, high-spirited, opinionated girl whom Martin had known in college,” is a graduate student in English, preparing to teach. Martin feels that she possesses the culture which he lacks and that in addition she is “so darn lovely.” Their romance is delayed, however, by his intense studying for final examinations.

Fatty Pfaff is a special problem to his fraternity brothers because of his inability to remember facts in spite of frantic coaching until two o’clock in the morning. Finally the president of Digamma Pi stuffs a “crib” in Fatty’s pocket, which he stoutly refuses to use but to which he refers in desperation during the exam. He gets through.

Martin’s fraternity brothers tire of his critical attitude and his exalted opinion of Gottlieb. Duer sourly reminds him of his lack of knowledge of foreign languages, architecture, important novels, and current events. Martin should “shut up or get out.”

Clif Clawson withdraws from Digamma Pi after many clashes with Angus Duer, and Martin also resigns, planning to room with Clif the following autumn. That summer Martin spends with a crew installing telephone lines in Montana. On his return to medical school, he is to realize at last his ambition of working with Gottlieb. He is thinking also of Madeline Fox, Clif Clawson, and Angus Duer.

Analysis

This chapter introduces several new characters: Professors Robertshaw and Stout, and the first woman to appear in the story, Madeline Fox. The ways of medical students of the times are reflected and also satirized in the horseplay of Clif Clawson, the cold and superior attitude of Angus Duer, and the condoning of “cribbing” in Fatty Pfaff. Martin is led to realize his own shortcomings through the caustic comments of his contemporaries. The chapter looks forward to two things for Martin: a romance with Madeline Fox and a year under the tutelage of Gottlieb.

Chapter IV

Summary

Professor Max Gottlieb infects a guinea pig with anthrax germs before a nervous bacteriology class, too respectful to stand close. He advises his students to be careful about infecting themselves when handling deadly germs and that the most important part of experimentation is not the experiment itself but taking “accurate, quantitative notes” in ink.

Duer observes to a fraternity brother that Gottlieb might have been a first-rate surgeon and made fifty thousand dollars a year instead of four thousand as a laboratory man. Martin Arrowsmith, however, visualizes himself as doing the same experiment.

The guinea pigs die in two days, and the class reassemble for the necropsy. Smears from the lungs, spleen, liver, and kidneys of the animals are made on glass slides and examined under a microscope. The uneasy class members recall nervous rumors of a former student who had died from infection under such circumstances.

Martin, in imitation of Gottlieb, has begun working in the laboratory at night with an enjoyment little short of ecstasy. One evening, the young student is invited to share coffee and small, foreign sandwiches with his master at midnight.

Gottlieb talks of the laboratories of London and Sweden and the epidemic in Marseilles as well as of his family: a sick wife, a son, and a daughter, Miriam. He recalls events of thirty years ago, such as his expulsion from Germany for refusing to sing Die Wacht Am Rhein. He wonders wryly whether deadly germs should be prevented from killing off at least a part of the human race, thus solving economic questions. The young scientist and the old look at the slides before Martin says goodnight.

Analysis

The personality of Gottlieb shines throughout these pages, the true scientist in a world of froth and fraud. The effect of Gottlieb’s teaching, his experiments, and his confidences is to deepen Martin’s admiration of the man and his lifetime devotion to the search for truth in the field of Martin’s own choice. The guinea pigs and their experimental scientific treatment foreshadow the use of phage later on to control a plague in humans.

Chapter V

Summary

Bacteriology dominates Martin’s life now, although he is also studying pathology, hygiene, surgical anatomy, and several other subjects. His roommate, Clif Clawson, though still a joker, supplies cheerfulness, for “The whole of Clif was more than the sum of his various parts.” Martin seldom thinks of his former fraternity brothers. He is more interested in rebelling against the cut-and-dried teaching of the professor of materia medica Dr. Lloyd Davidson. Clif becomes impatient with him. For diversion and understanding, Martin returns to Madeline Fox.

Madeline encourages Martin to complete his medical courses before deciding exactly what he will do. Her widowed mother, who has come to live with Madeline, supplies a home and a chaperone for her daughter’s entertaining, which is on a higher cultural and social level than that to which Martin is accustomed. A riva...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Book Summary
• About Arrowsmith
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Chapter I
• Chapter II
• Chapter III
• Chapter IV
• Chapter V
• Chapter VI
• Chapter VII
• Chapter VIII
• Chapter IX
• Chapter X
• Chapter XI
• Chapter XII
• Chapter XIII
• Chapter XIV
• Chapter XV
• Chapter XVI
• Chapter XVII
• Chapter XVIII
• Chapter XIX
• Chapter XX
• Chapter XXI
• Chapter XXII
• Chapter XXIII
• Chapter XXIV
• Chapter XXV
• Chapter XXVI
• Chapter XXVII
• Chapter XXVIII
• Chapter XXIX
• Chapter XXX
• Chapter XXXI
• Chapter XXXII
• Chapter XXXIII
• Chapter XXXIV
• Chapter XXXV
• Chapter XXXVI
• Chapter XXXVII
• Chapter XXXVIII
• Chapter XXXIX
• Chapter XL
• Character Analysis
• Martin Arrowsmith
• Leora Tozer Arrowsmith
• Max Gottlieb
• Sondelius
• Terry Wickett
• Pickerbaugh
• The Tozer Family
• Clif Clawson
• Angus Duer
• The Reverend Ira Hinkley
• Irving Watters
• Madeline Fox
• Joyce Lanyon Arrowsmith
• Sinclair Lewis Biography
• Critical Essays
• Theme, Plot, and Structure of Arrowsmith
• Technique of Telling, Style, Setting of Arrowsmith
• Satire, Realism, Local Color in Arrowsmith
• Study Help
• Quiz
• Essay Questions