Main Street

Carol Kennicott is the protagonist of Main Street, a round, dynamic character whose identity is tied to civic imagination. This imagination collides with a culture that prizes routine. Before she ever sees Gopher Prairie, Carol frames her ambition in public terms: She wants “to make [a prairie town] beautiful” (5)—to bring beauty to the town in the form of art, architecture, and education. This is a grand project for Carol, as the Main Street of one prairie town is “the continuation of Main Streets everywhere” (i). It is also the project that will establish her identity. From the first walk along the business blocks, Carol reads storefronts, signs, clubrooms, and the courthouse lawn as a social text. Her instinct is diagnostic and then constructive. She is yet to realize, however, that any change to the town will be considered heresy. Carol is naïve enough not to expect resistance to her reform. The town’s pervasive policing of the imaginable comes as a shock to her and becomes the central tension of her life, as she rages against the conformity of Main Street.

The resistance to Carol’s reforms comes in the form of gossip and rumor. Carol is made to feel like an outsider; the townspeople gossip about her in a very obvious manner, making it clear that she is not one of them.