The Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America

“Henry Ford and Abner Shutt are foils for one another.” Choose three passages from The Flivver King that support this claim. Analyze each passage, explaining in what way Ford and Shutt are foils for one another and the significance of this relationship for the novel.

Compare and contrast the three women who marry into the Shutt family: Milly, Annabelle, and Dell. What are their lives like? What does each woman value? What views, if any, do they have about the labor struggle and how did they come to hold those views? With whom do you think Sinclair sympathizes most?

Why do you think Sinclair chose to use third-person omniscient narration for this story? What would have been different, had he chosen to use a first-person narrator? If you had to rewrite the novel, using one of its characters as a first-person limited narrator, whom would you choose and why? What would be gained or lost by changing the novel’s narrative strategy in this way?