Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire Of The Vanities

Juries have the tough decision on whether a person is guilty or not, and the judge decides their sentence. Sometimes, a person’s guilt is enough to convict them of a crime, but oftentimes, there is more to the story. Tom Wolfe’s novel The Bonfire of the Vanities follows a cast of characters and their rise and fall in New York. The main character, Sherman McCoy, is a very successful bond salesman who lives with his wife and daughter in their lush apartment. Despite having an amazing life with his wife, he craves more, seeking affairs and more wealth. McCoy’s girlfriend is named Maria, and they both end up seriously injuring a young black man, Henry Lamb, in Sherman’s car. A subplot follows Kramer, a prosecutor who works in the inner city. Kramer

is a relatively poor man, who does not have a lot of power or influence; however, he still strives to become famous. Later, he is chosen for the court case about the hit-and-run on Henry Lamb.

The court scenes that Kramer is part of reveal the disgusting habits behind prosecuting minorities and the vulnerable. However, that changes once Sherman McCoy is brought to court. Tom Wolfe’s novel The Bonfire of the Vanities criticizes the way the media, society, and the judicial system treats minorities compared to how they treat those in power using themes of greed and white male vanity.
Sherman McCoy’s actions promote the theme of the negative consequences associated with vanity and egotism. Sherman McCoy continues an affair despite having a loving wife and daughter. Sherman leaves his apartment under the pretense of walking his dog, his true motive is seeing Maria, and he grabs a payphone to call her. Sherman realizes he has called his wife, “The woman said: ‘Sherman? Is that you?’ Christ! It’s Judy! He’s dialed his own apartment! He’s aghast-paralyzed!” (40). Sherman feels no remorse at what he is doing towards his family, and quickly shrugs off the incident saying he will deny the call to his wife. Sherman’s greed has led him to conduct an affair, because he is no longer happy with his wife, just because of her age. While having an affair is bad enough on its own, it is the

catalyst that destroys Sherman’s life. Because of his vanity, he is with Maria, who then causes the death of Henry Lamb. It is safe to assume that if he could have been happy with what he had in life, that he would not be associated with Henry Lamb at all. Sherman’s ego only makes matters worse for him during the investigation into the murder of Henry. Because Sherman believes he is better than everyone, he upsets the investigating police officers. He convinced himself he is some great power, a “master of the universe”, but really he is not. “Time to cut it off, assert himself. But what tone to take? These two were connected by an invisible line to a dangerous …Power” (668). Sherman does not allow them to view his car, because he does not want them to know he had been driving the night of Henry Lamb’s incident. Sherman’s actions have caught up to him. His vindictive attitude led him to be rude towards everyone who he viewed as below his. One of these people is Dan, the garage attendant who would gladly give information about Sherman. Sherman cannot trust anyone in his life, and he realizes at this point that he is truly alone. The attitudes that made him rich; the greed and avarice, are the same ones that turns people against him. As Sherman begins collapsing in upon himself, the consequences of white male vanity are shown.
Sherman’s fate compares the results of his actions towards others, making his punishment justified.

As Sherman’s life is turned upside down, he needs to deal with the convictions charged against him. His means he needs to reveal his mistress was driving the car at the time, forcing him in a tough situation. First, he tells Judy, his wife everything that happened that night, revealing his affair. This permanently damages their relationship, and she takes their daughter, Campbell and leaves. He is then forced to wear a wire when he meets with Maria in hopes of recording her admitting to driving the car. She moves to hug him, feeling the wire, and exiles him from her home. “’That’s right, run! Drag your tail between your legs!’ It was true. Hobbling down the stairs with the tape deck dangling ignominiously down his back-side” (1261). Tom Wolfe carefully documents Sherman’s fall, and the sequence of events adds to the theme of the work. Slowly, over time, Sherman has been losing his friends and family, obsessing over work. Material objects are the only things that are important to Sherman, and if he lost his money first, he would realize the value of his family. Instead, he focuses on money, so losing his wife and daughter hurt less. Eventually, he loses his mistress too, leaving him with nobody, and he faces the trial alone and despairing. After the trial, and his revealed innocence, he loses his money as well. Only at that point does he begin to value relationships. “At one

point, Mr. McCoy looked toward his wife, smiled slightly, and raised his left hand in a clenched-fist salute” (1382). This is reference to when Sherman and Judy first met, and Sherman was just a young man, trying to be an individual in the terrifying bond business. His attempt to rekindle their relationship is a foil to the earlier Sherman. There is nothing of monetary value that he can gain by being with Judy, which is different than before, where Sherman would only look for new objects and more money. His wife and family were just a side part of his life, and now that he is broke and isolated, he finally values them. The ironic twist is that now it is too late for repair. Lawyer Samuel Pillsbury comments on punishment, “The first and perhaps hardest question for any modern theory of deserved punishment is whether free choice is possible. The answer involves the interrelationship of three fundamental concepts: reason, cause, and freedom” (Pillsbury 723). While from a free will aspect, McCoy was free to reveal to the police that Maria hit Henry Lamb, because of his previous actions, he can no longer do that. Since he cannot discuss the actions to his wife, the only person he can be influenced by is Maria, who is looking out for herself. So, Sherman is not truly free at all, he is quite oppressed. This is all his fault, and he has nobody else to blame but his greed.
Lawrence Kramer’s character arc is a perfect example of how constantly wanting more can cause one’s downfall. Lawrence Kramer is a lawyer who works for the city as a prosecutor. While initially he wants to stand up for what is right, he caves to materialism in the city and lust for a woman on the jury of one of his cases. “What holds him from pressing his lips upon those lips with brown lipstick?” (64). Again, another character has fallen to wanting other women besides his wife. Kramer is by no means rich, and he is constantly shown what life is like for richer men, being part of city life. The similarities between Sherman and Kramer are astounding, despite only Kramer being impoverished, they both obsess over power and influence. Kramer uses the court systems as an outlet to push his frustration and “assert his dominance”. He is remorseless on a court case where a man fired a weapon in self-defense. However, he is not working on the side of justice, instead, he is showing off. He wants to prove himself to the “girl with brown lipstick”, Shelly. His toxic attitude has changed his once pristine morals, much like the city of New York has changed. His relationship with Shelly begins, and he takes her out to lunch. As he talks, he begins an egocentric monologue, “The words were gushing out, in torrents, all the marvelous things about his bravery and talent for the fray that he had no one to tell about” (545). His idealistic nature for himself projects an image that he wants people to see. He wants people to see him as a defender of the innocent, someone who locks up evil. The irony is that in cultivating this image for himself, he ends up losing sight of what it really means. This draws him further and further away, until he is willing to commit perjury. Kramer’s character arc from an honorable lawyer, to an absorbed egocentric maniac is the cause of his downfall.