The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
**Overview of "The Bonfire of the Vanities" by Tom Wolfe**
"The Bonfire of the Vanities" is a novel by Tom Wolfe that explores themes of class, race, and morality in 1980s New York City. The story centers on Sherman McCoy, a wealthy Wall Street investment banker whose life spirals out of control after he is involved in a hit-and-run incident while driving with his mistress. This event sets off a chain reaction of media frenzy and public outrage, as the narrative delves into the contrasting lives of the affluent elite and the marginalized communities in the Bronx. McCoy, initially portrayed as a figure of privilege, becomes the “Great White Defendant,” facing a legal system that exploits his situation for political gain and sensationalism.
Wolfe’s characters often embody stereotypes, which critics note can detract from the depth of the narrative. The novel serves as a social commentary, reflecting the tensions of a city grappling with immigration, economic disparity, and shifting political dynamics. While McCoy’s experience exposes him to the harsh realities of life outside his sheltered existence, the novel ultimately critiques the greed and selfishness that permeate both affluent and lower-class societies. Wolfe’s work has sparked debate regarding its portrayal of race and class struggles, as he navigates the complexities of a rapidly changing urban landscape.
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
First published: 1987
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of work: The 1980’s
Locale: New York City
Principal Characters:
Sherman McCoy , a bond salesman who considers himself a “Master of the Universe” but who is going broke on an annual income of a million dollarsJudy McCoy , Sherman’s fading wife, who loves to spend her husband’s money and fancies herself an interior decoratorMaria Ruskin , Sherman’s Southern-born mistress, the unfaithful wife of an elderly multimillionairePeter Fallow , an alcoholic English reporter for a New York scandal sheetLawrence Kramer , the ambitious assistant district attorney in Sherman’s first trial for reckless endangermentThomas Killian , Sherman’s streetwise defense attorneyJudge Myron Kovitsky , a feisty judge who presides over Sherman’s first trialReverend Reginald Bacon , a black minister with dubious credentials who exploits black unrest for profit
The Novel
In The Bonfire of the Vanities, an upper-middle-class white Wall Street investment banker who thinks he is on top of the world discovers that his fragile world is in imminent danger of destruction from within. At age thirty-eight, Sherman McCoy is near the peak of his career. He is married and has one young daughter whom he loves but rarely sees because of his hectic double life. In addition to being absorbed in business, he maintains an adulterous relationship with a sexy blonde who is having fun while waiting for her elderly multimillionaire husband to die.
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One night while driving his mistress, Maria Ruskin, home, Sherman accidentally takes a wrong turn off the expressway and finds himself in one of the poorest and most dangerous slums of the Bronx. After finding his way back to the expressway, he discovers that the on-ramp is blocked with rubbish, and when he gets out to clear a path, he sees two black youths approaching with obviously sinister intentions. Maria, in panic, slides behind the wheel and calls for him to jump in. Backing up to get around the barricade, she bumps one of the youths and then speeds off without looking back.
They read in the next day’s newspaper that a teenager named Harold Lamb was felled by a hit-and-run driver at that location and is hospitalized in a coma. Lamb eventually provides a description and partial license number of the car that struck him. An alcoholic journalist named Peter Fallow publicizes the incident in his tabloid because of its dramatic potential—a rich white man in a Mercedes-Benz knocking down a poor black youth and driving off without stopping. To further dramatize the contrast, Lamb is falsely described as a model youth and an honor student.
The police are forced to investigate because of the publicity and the public outcry fueled by the Reverend Reginald Bacon, an opportunist who blackmails wealthy liberals with threats of mob violence. When the police get around to Sherman, he breaks down and admits his involvement but does not implicate Maria.
During the rest of the novel, Sherman is processed through a cynical legal system in which he stands out conspicuously as the “Great White Defendant.” The prosecution wishes to make political capital out of convicting him; the defense wishes to milk Sherman for as much money as possible. Ironically, no one really cares about the truth but only about capitalizing on the situation.
Sherman is thrown into cells with hardened criminals, most of whom are ignorant members of the underclass. Having been educated in the best schools and sheltered from the cruel realities of life, Sherman is horrified by the conditions he sees. The experience toughens him and teaches him the need to fight for himself in a ruthless, dog-eat-dog world.
Sherman quickly loses his job, because his company is afraid of adverse publicity. Without his big paychecks, he is driven to the brink of bankruptcy. He is forced to sell his expensive cooperative Park Avenue apartment, but the proceeds are tied up in a civil suit by Lamb’s mother and a real-estate broker. Maria Ruskin refuses to corroborate Sherman’s account of the hit-and-run incident or to admit she was driving on the night in question.
His first trial on a charge of reckless endangerment is thrown out of court by Judge Kovitsky, an old-time jurist who still believes in due process and refuses to bow to mob or media pressure. Sherman’s second trial ends with a hung jury. In the meantime, Lamb dies, and Sherman is indicted for manslaughter; he faces a possible sentence of up to twenty-five years. At the end of the novel, Sherman has been reduced to poverty and has become a sort of urban guerrilla, fighting the justice system and the ignorant masses who have been whipped into frenzy by a demagogue and a corrupt newspaper.
The Characters
Characterization is Wolfe’s Achilles’ heel, and his weakness in this aspect of fiction writing might explain why he had never tried to write a novel before. He has been criticized for creating characters who are stereotypes or caricatures. Throughout his career, Wolfe has been known as a social satirist, and this venture into fiction writing did not represent a radical change in technique. His previous writings, which were all important contributions to the school of the “New Journalism,” focused on human foibles. In this novel, he was more anxious to point out the foibles of social classes than to attempt to invent three-dimensional characters.
Sherman represents the upwardly mobile, well-educated upper-middle-class capitalists who bring billions of dollars flowing into New York City and thereby attract hordes of “have-nots.” His wife represents all the spoiled, selfish women who are married to the Sherman McCoys. Judy is sexually frustrated because her husband has turned his affections to a younger woman, and she consequently expends her energies on extravagant purchases that keep them chronically in debt.
Maria Ruskin has been criticized for being nothing more than a stereotypical “dumb blonde.” She has been given a thick Southern accent to make her stand out as a character. She is just as selfish, spoiled, and bitchy as Sherman’s wife, but she is quite a few years younger.
Peter Fallow is lazy and incompetent, an alcoholic and a freeloader, but he has good manners and valuable social connections. He has no conscience about what he writes for his trashy tabloid, and his editor will accept anything that can be printed without getting the paper sued for libel.
The Reverend Reginald Bacon is a self-appointed African American “leader” who stirs up trouble for what amounts to nothing more than blackmail. White liberals donate money to his various causes to keep him and his followers pacified, and much of the money finds its way into Bacon’s own pockets.
The only character in the novel who develops is Sherman McCoy himself. His character change, however, is a little too radical to be plausible. He changes from a spoiled, elitist Yale University graduate into an urban guerrilla fighting a lone battle against hopeless odds.
Wolfe’s forte is not characterization but rather his penetrating social intelligence, which typically finds expression in satire. The other characters in the novel can be read as New York types, and it has often been suggested that The Bonfire of the Vanities is a roman à clef, with such characters as Fallow and Bacon representing people known to insiders if not to the general reader.
Thomas Killian and Lawrence Kramer are stereotypical New York lawyers. The police officials are also stereotypes who could have come out of any police television drama. The Bonfire of the Vanities is strongly reminiscent of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (1925), a masterpiece in the realist genre that Wolfe admires. Like the men involved in apprehending, prosecuting, and defending Clyde Griffiths in Dreiser’s novel, Wolfe’s representatives of law and order care nothing about morality or truth; all they care about is how they might benefit from a publicity bonanza.
There is not a single admirable character in the book. Wolfe portrays all humans as greedy, selfish, narrow-minded, and often sadistic. He treats the lower classes with utter contempt, but he has little regard for the upper classes either.
Critical Context
Wolfe paints a picture of America’s biggest, richest city in the late twentieth century. Like all the major cities of America, New York is suffering form unprecedented social unrest. The white upper classes who have run things since before the American Revolution are retreating into enclaves as the cities become flooded with poor, nonwhite immigrants from other countries and from American farmlands, where mechanization is making their labor superfluous. Many of these newcomers remain unemployed because they have no marketable skills. They become a drain on the welfare system, and government subsidies are one of the attractions that draw more and more such people to the big cities.
In many American cities, the white majority is turning into a white minority. Political power is passing from whites to nonwhites because the one thing the nonwhites possess is their voting power. Some charismatic leaders in the minority communities take advantage of unrest to obtain power and profit.
Human greed and selfishness are not monopolized by any single race. Affluent whites are so obsessed with enriching themselves that they are content to buy time with government handouts while surrounding themselves with barred windows, watchdogs, electronic protection devices, and private armies of security guards. The underprivileged nonwhites are conditioned to develop a passive-aggressive attitude—the so-called welfare mentality—demanding more and more bribes in the form of welfare payments, food stamps, subsidized housing, and other benefits as the price for not engaging in open revolution. Wolfe has been accused of exaggerating the situation and deliberately falsifying the facts to make his case more dramatic. Whether readers agree with him or not is likely to depend on their political perspectives.
Bibliography
Black, George. “The Far-Right Stuff.” The New Statesman 115 (February 12, 1988): 31. An extremely negative review of The Bonfire of the Vanities. Black accuses Wolfe of distorting the truth about the underprivileged residents of the Bronx. He calls the book “a set piece for cartoon characters.”
Shomette, Doug, ed. The Critical Response to Tom Wolfe. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992. A collection of essays, both positive and negative, on books published by Wolfe up to 1990. This excellent reference source contains incisive essays on The Bonfire of the Vanities. Also contains a chronology of important events in Wolfe’s life and a generous bibliography.
Thompson, James. “The Phoenix and the Bonfire’: The Death and Transformation of Sherman McCoy.” World and I 8 (January, 1993): 526-539. Thompson explores the relationship between religion and morality in the life of Sherman McCoy. Although Thompson is careful to point out that Sherman’s experiences should not be viewed as a mirror of Wolfe’s, he does draw parallels between Sherman’s Anglican affiliation and Wolfe’s childhood exposure to the Episcopal Church.
Vigilante, Richard. “The Truth About Tom Wolfe.” The National Review 39 (December 18, 1987): 46-48. An enthusiastic review of The Bonfire of the Vanities reflecting ultraconservative views. Vigilante calls Wolfe the most important writer of his generation. He predicts that because of Wolfe’s example, the “social-realist novel will soon re-emerge as an accepted and perhaps dominant force on the serious fiction scene.”
Wolfe, Tom. “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast: A Literary Manifesto for the New Social Novel.” Harper’s Magazine 279 (November, 1989): 45-56. In this landmark essay written shortly after publication of The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe proposes that American writers return to the tradition of realism. He describes the characteristics of realism and criticizes contemporary fiction writers for neglecting the panorama of modern life in favor of cryptic subjectivism and frivolous experimentalism. As he gleefully anticipated, his essay provoked a storm of controversy.