150 RüdigerKunow
(45), presents the many trials and tribulations which eventually lead the
medical man to (a short-lived) public stardom, as "the universal hero"
(379)oftheRoaringTwenties.^96
ButArrowsmith'sultimatehourofgloryunfoldselsewhere.Itcomes
whentheplaguebreaksoutonthesmallCaribbeanislandofSt.Hubert.
Lewisdedicatesseveralchaptersto this outbreak (325-81),told in ways
thatwouldlaterre-surfaceinatextlikeCrosby's.Moreimportantly,this
section marks a noticeable hiatus in the narrative. At the very moment
when this "detective" (296), this high-powered "investigator" (301), has
solved the medical mystery, Lewis shifts narrative gears. Not only does
he bring in many factors toning down Arrowsmith's triumph^97 (the
deathsofhiswifeandhisfriend,thesofteningofhisinvestigativerigor,
his self-doubts, his lack of social intelligence, etc.), he also allows the
satiric impulse noticeable throughout the book—for example in the
figure of Dr. Pickerbaugh, "the two-fisted fighting poet doc" (242)— to
take precedence over the biomedical quest narrative. Because U.S.
society had (in Lewis's view) at that time corrupted the ideals of pure
scienceuntaintedbymaterialconcerns,theonlywayforArrowsmith to
retain his integrity is to opt out of the system and join a friend in
Vermont where they together can pursue scientific projects together in
ways that meet their ethical standards. Lewis's pessimistic cultural
politics allow for no other closure of this novel. And this politics
includes a rather somber perspective which links the medical Sherlock
storywiththedubiousroleoftheU.S.asredeemernation:
... America, which was always rescuing the world from something or
other, had gone and done it again.... There was at the time, in certain
(^96) CharlesRosenberg's1963readingofthenovelhasemphasizedthispointvery
much, as his subtitle already indicates (cf. also 448, 456). Even outside the
literaryworld,MartinArrowsmith,asIlanaLöwyhasrecentlyreconfirmed,has
become "the iconic image of a medical researcher, and a source of inspiration
forgenerationsofAmericanmedicalstudentsandyoungdoctors"(481).
(^97) Fromthispointonward,Lewisallowshisbiographicalnarrativetofocusmore
onArrowsmith'sshortcomingsasalivinghumanbeing.Livingforthemostpart
inhisimagination(344),heissoobsessedwithhisresearchthathecannotreally
entertain lasting emotional relationships with other people. In this, he is
curiouslylikeSherlockHolmes.