Discussion for Sinclair’s THE FLIVVER KING

 

Industrialism and the Individual:  Henry Ford as a Case Study

 

 

The Industrial Revolutions

 

extension of human power through technology/devalue muscle work

 

routine mental work eliminated ... created alienation

 

 

Henry Ford

 

Notions of the individual

 

Business philosophy

 

Labor/management relations

 

                  

The working class family:  the Shutts

 

American Dream

 

The reality

 

 

The Irony of THE FLIVVER KING

 

“King” connotes autocratic control of individual ...

 

Subservience of subject to king ... examples in this novel?

 

Do the imperatives of industrialism make the irony(ies) inevitable?

 

Who is responsible ... ultimately?