The Bonfire Of The vanities Essay
Tom Wolfe's book, The Bonfire of the Vanities, certainly can be seen as a reflection of the attitudes, concerns and events of the latter part of the twentieth century. Tom Wolfe says himself that his aim for this book was to write a "realistic novel that crammed as much as of New York City between covers as you could." (Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire Of The Vanities (Introduction), 1979.) In doing this Tom Wolfe has created a novel firmly fixed in both a time and a place. This sense of time and place as much as the plot and characters contributes to a novel that deals with many late twentieth century themes. The themes and concerns of the late twentieth century that are looked at in the book include wealth, the gap between rich and poor, the importance of image, presenting well to the world, a preoccupation with sexuality, roles of minority groups, race issues, law and order, the justice system, the role and significance of the media, city living (basically life in New York), and the !corruption of political systems and politicians. The theme of image is a very important idea in society and this is reflected in the book in many ways. The main way is through the image of the characters and, most of all the image of the main character
For example the Jewish lawyer named Kramer. Bacon is a good example of how power can be misused and is a reflection of what can occur in our society. This is a reflection of the many different races that live in New York. Sherman is a character that by our societies standards has it all. The City Light has as its headline in enormous letters on the front page of there newspaper " WALL STREET SOCIALITE NABBED IN HIT AND RUN" (Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities, pg 538. Another part of this is the justice system. By showing this throughout the book Wolfe is questioning the idea of the American dream and the problems that are often found in capitalism. He has reflected the attitudes, concerns and events of the latter part of the twentieth century. Kramer is portrayed, as a hard-nosed lawyer who is living in the Bronx on a salary that is not even close to comparable to the six-digit figure that MaCoy takes home each year. It is interesting to note that Wolfe shows us a great contrast of characters in the sense that there is a lot of different types of social standings shown throughout the characters. ) " 'We are investing in the souls, this is the new kind of capital. ) Wolfe clearly shows in this incident the misuse of the power of the press in the later half of the twentieth century. " (Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities, pg 547. " 'Over hear, Sherman! 'Hey Sherman!' They were all yelling for Sherman.
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