Sinclair Lewis (1885 - 1951), American writer. Received 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters". Almost eight decades have passed since the publication of the novel "Kingsblood Royal". Nevertheless, that novel still sends us messages that are current, universal and warn us, just like when it was written.

2. AFTER EIGHT DECADES
• Today, after almost 8 decades since it was published, what brings us back to the
already somewhat forgotten novel of the first American Nobel laureate for literature,
Sinclair Lewis, “Kingsblood Royal”?
• I would say that it is its topicality and universality.
• It arise not so much from the specific topic of this novel, which is the racial problem,
but from its essential messages that characterize not only American society (the
action take place in a town in Minnesota in the first half of the last century), and a
space and time, as, one would say, different parts of the world at different times.

4. PREJUDICE AND MINORITY
• The problem that stems from prejudice, from hatred towards what is different and
minority, what does not fit into our long-adopted attitudes, which we do not even
ask if they are wrong – is expressed all over our planet, in America perhaps and less
than in other parts of the world, although it does not seem so at first glance. Why?
• Because in America for many years there has been a public, freedom of expression
that is difficult to stifle, there are media, films and literary works that do not run
away from the problem but strive to illuminate and actualize it. It is certainly still not
ideal, but it is still an advantage that is very significant.

6. DIFFERENCES GREATER THAN EVER
• People don’t have to differ only by race,they differ by nationality, religion, ideology,
and political views, by determinations and what I think is particularly pronounced
and very painful today – by their property and social status.
• Differences between people today seem to be greater than ever, which in rich
societies may not be as painful and unsustainable as in poor ones.
• And what further demoralizes thinking people and makes them unhappy is the lack
of equal opportunities.

7. EQUAL CHANCES FOR SOCIAL
GAME
• Because it is a well-known fact that a society of complete equality is impossible and
that attempts to create such a society ended up as devasting utopias and very often
tyranny.
• So, if people have to differe in terms of wealth, because not everyone’s abilities are
the same, then it is necessary to provide at least approximately equal chances for
that social game.
• And so that these differences, as they happen in poor societies, are not extremely
large and almost absurd.

9. INDIVIDUAL AGAINST MAYORITY
• This novel also talks about the problem of inequality, as well as about the power of
prejudice, the relationship of the majority to the minority and the effort of the
individual, as we see unsuccesfully, to put that relationship on a more human and
civilized basis.
• But in that fight, it cannot be said that the individual in this story is completely
defeated.

10. ADMIRABLE SACRIFICE
• He receives support from someone who, if she wanted it, doesn’t have to give it to
him, and that is a loved one, his wife, who is with him until the end (and the end
smells like tragedy).
• That is an admirable sacrifice.

12. ARISTOCRATIC BLOOD
• The main character of the novel, Neil Kingsblood, at the beginning is a promising
business man, respectable, family man, white man with a career ahead of him.
• The plot begins when his father suggeswts that their family has aristocratic blood in
its veins.
• Curious, he embarks on a quest that will lead him to bitter truths and rejection of all
prejudices and understandings that, living with the benefits of a successful career,
he had until then.

13. OEDIPUS DRAMATURGY
• Like Sophocles’ Oedipus in perhaps the most dramaturgically perfect world drama
ever written, his every step leads him deeper and deeper into the abyss and ruin,
personal and family.
• However, there is something that is bright in that accident, which is a moral and
human sobriety and getting to know the hell that exists on the other side.

15. IN SOMEONE ELSE’S SHOES
• Just of the oft-quoted passage from Harper Lee’s „To Kill a Mockingbird“ puts in
about living „in someone else’s shoes“.
• About the fact that we cannot feel someone else’s pain and unhappiness if we don’t
put on his suit and become him, figuratively speaking.
• The main character, during his „fall“ , felt it and that, in a way, makes him
enlightened.

16. LITERARY EMANCIPATORY ROLE
• My position is that literature cannot fundamentally change the world and history,
nor should it, as art, be expected to do so.
• However, literature has a very important emacipatory role, it can warn us and draw
our attention to the problems and questions that surround us.
• To make us think carefully about them, to open up new horizons for us.
• Great literature has that power.
• And Sinclair Lewis’ novel also has that power.