100 pages • 3 hours read
Upton SinclairThe Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1937A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 7-9
Chapters 10-12
Chapters 13-15
Chapters 16-18
Chapters 19-21
Chapters 22-24
Chapters 25-27
Chapters 28-30
Chapters 31-33
Chapters 34-36
Chapters 37-39
Chapters 40-42
Chapters 43-45
Chapters 46-48
Chapters 49-51
Chapters 52-54
Chapters 55-57
Chapters 58-60
Chapters 61-63
Chapters 64-66
Chapters 67-69
Chapters 70-72
Chapters 73-75
Chapters 76-78
Chapters 79-81
Chapters 82-84
Chapters 85-92
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaChapters 55-57Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 55 Summary
Johnny is absorbed in his work as a resistance welder at the River Rouge plant. He and his privileged and stylish wife, Annabelle, live in a “showy” (143) house in an expensive, exclusive neighborhood. The two occupy a middle-to-high position within a hierarchy based on income and view the “Ford empire” for which John works and which he reveres, as “most virtuous” (143). Although their house is poorly built and “its owners would have heavy repair bills in the future” (144), they believe that John’s skills will always be in demand and that he will continue to earn a good living.
The other members of the Shutt family live in the Ford “feudal” (144) system as well: “Abner and Milly were the most abject of serfs, having pictures of their liege cut from Sunday supplements and pasted on the wall, serving the same purpose as Russian ikons” (145). They are “blissful” that John is succeeding in the Ford Company and that Daisy has fallen in love with a Ford administration employee, and they hope “that Tommy’s youthful rebelliousness [will] pass and that he too [will] become one of Henry’s retainers” (145).
Whether one serves Ford or rebels against him, he still “dominate[s] your life” (145), as Hank Shutt’s life demonstrates. Hank openly scoffs at Ford and his executives, but soon finds that they need his services, too: he supplies the alcohol for their cocktail parties and provides other unspecified services to Ford himself: “It would not be long before he too would delight his old father’s heart by coming under the banner of the Flivver King” (145).
Chapter 56 Summary
The first Wall Street crash is followed by several more. “American business began to slow up, and then to sicken and die” (146), and the Great Depression lasts three and a half years. President Hoover “[has] Congress vote huge sums to his friends and beneficiaries, the great banks and corporations which had put up his campaign funds” (146) in the false belief that the money will trickle down to ordinary consumers. However, the banks refuse to lend out the money because they do not see the possibility of profit.
Most Americans stop buying cars, and 175,000 men in Detroit lose their jobs. The car manufacturers reduce the amount of money they keep in the banks and the unemployed take their money out of the banks to live; this leads the bank where Abner keeps his money to fail.
Abner asks his foreman to let him go to the bank to try to take out his savings, but the foreman tells him he must put in his hours for the day before leaving or else risk losing his job, saying “I been seeing for a long time that you can’t keep up the pace” (148). Abner pleads with the foreman, pointing out that he has worked for Ford for 28 years and that he has a family to support. The foreman, who has been given orders to fire twelve men that day, fires Abner.
Chapter 57 Summary
Stunned and heartbroken, Abner goes to the bank. It is closed, and he cannot access the money. He goes to other car factories, which manufacture parts for Ford but pay a small fraction of Ford’s wages, in search of a job. His search is in vain, and many younger and healthier men than 53-year-old Abner are competing for work. Abner’s only option is to do odd jobs for $1 a day or less.
Daisy, who has just gotten married, is laid off from her job: “Daisy’s superior told her that he was sorry, but they were under orders to drop two hundred employees, and all married women were on the list” (150). Daisy’s husband is working only two days a week, so the young couple moves back in with the Shutts, whose house is paid for.
Daisy goes in search of work but learns that nobody will hire a married woman. Finally, she decides to sell her car for extra money, but so many other people are selling their cars that prices have dropped radically. Eventually she sells the car, which she had bought for $255, for $42.
Chapters 55-57 Analysis
Chapter 55 introduces the language of empire and feudalism to describe Ford’s relationship to his employees and the surrounding community; this comparison will become one of the most important recurring motifs in the chapters that follow.
It is a striking comparison because the ideology to which Abner clings so fervently, and to which Ford pays such consistent and skillful lip-service, is that of an egalitarian, democratic United States in which “The poorest boy had the right to become president; and besides this grand prize were innumerable smaller ones, senators, governors, judges, and all the kings, lords, and lesser nobility of industry” (5), whereas empires and feudal systems are inherently hierarchical. In feudal systems, social roles are more or less fixed based on birth: the son of a serf is himself a serf. There is an internal tension in the sentence quoted above, between the idea of an upwardly mobile populace, of whom any member can become president, senator, or judge, and that of businessmen as “kings, lords, and lesser nobility” (5).
There is a similar tension between what Abner believes and the way he and his family live. As the Depression deprives thousands of workers of employment, Abner loses his job when he attempts to retrieve his meagre savings (the needs of the company must come before the needs of the worker) and companies categorically refuse to hire Daisy because of her gender and marital status.
