The Bonfire of the Vanities

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1987

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 6

Chapters 7-12

Chapters 13-18

Chapters 19-24

Chapter 25-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Background

Socio-Historical Context: New York in the 1980s

The Bonfire of the Vanities is set in 1980s New York, a period marked by conspicuous consumption, stark inequalities, and a growing stock market. Many factors led to the economic boom of the 1980s, among them the policies of President Ronald Reagan, colloquially known as Reaganomics. Reagan’s government reduced capital gains tax and government regulation on businesses, which contributed to a period of growth in private businesses. The bond market grew substantially, with bond salesmen and investment brokers making enormous commissions. A bond is a debt investment, in which the investor loans money to an entity for a defined period. Corporations and governments—such as the French government with the Giscard bond in Wolfe’s novel—use bonds to negotiate directly with consumers for more favorable rates than banks tend to offer. Salesmen and brokers make money in the form of commissions on the transactions. However, there are risks associated with bonds; bond issuers might default on their payments and be unable to repay bondholders. Certain riskier bonds are known as junk bonds. The trading boom of the 1980s banked on junk bonds, which were repackaged and sold to customers as part of a portfolio with safer instruments.

In the 1980s, Wall Street trading of bonds was a competitive, stressful enterprise, with salesmen loudly negotiating with clients across the US and the world. The unprecedented rise in incomes led to an era of consumption not seen in the US since the 1920s. At the same time, economic prosperity was lopsided, with many Black and minority ethnic communities battling homelessness and unemployment. Convictions against Black Americans and Americans of color were particularly high. Mayor Edward Koch, on whom the unnamed mayor in the novel is loosely based, was especially criticized for giving the police more rights to arrest people. The Bronx, regarded as one of the city’s most racially diverse boroughs, was associated in popular perception with increased crime and poverty.

Historical Context: The Bonfire of the Vanities

Novelist Tom Wolfe takes the title of the novel from the Renaissance-era Florentine practice of “falò delle vanità,” or burning items associated with excess and luxury. The practice may have arisen in reaction to the corruption of the wealthy Catholic Church and the exploitation of the poor. However, the “vanities” or symbols of excess soon began to include books and art deemed immoral and appealing to people’s vain, superficial side. In 1494, the ruling Médici family was driven out of Florence. Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican friar, gained prominence in the city at the heart of the early Italian Renaissance. Savonarola had strict beliefs about austerity and considered recreation and luxury immoral. In 1497, Savonorola’s followers made a huge bonfire of the vanities, collecting and torching thousands of mirrors, cosmetics, fashionable garments, artworks, and books.

In the context of Wolfe’s novel, vanities can be said to represent status, greed, ambition, wealth, and moral vacuity. Only when the protagonist Sherman McCoy is stripped of all these vices is he ready to abandon fear and face the New York justice system. At the end of the novel, Sherman has had to sell off his Park Avenue apartment, and his other assets have been frozen. He is separated from his wife Judy, who has moved out of state with their daughter, Campbell. Maria, his girlfriend, has left him and is married to another man. Though Sherman’s outward markers of status are torched away, it is suggested his soul has been purged through the bonfire. Another interpretation of the title can be a warning against overreaction to excess. Just like Savonorola’s purging impulse extended to books and art, the title suggests that the impulse to rectify the excesses of capitalism should not occlude justice and reason.

Literary Context: The Bonfire of the Vanities as the Great American Novel

In his foreword to the novel, author Tom Wolfe states that he wanted to write a book “of the city, in the sense that…Dickens and Thackeray had written novels of London” (ix). In line with his intention, The Bonfire of the Vanities features New York at the forefront, capturing everything from the chaos of Wall Street trading rooms to the opulence of Fifth Avenue to the vitality of the Bronx. Wolfe’s novel is also a book of social realism in the tradition of Dickens because it seeks to turn a mirror to society’s follies and foibles. While the novel satirizes its characters, it also offers a corrective to their ways: Those who refuse to succumb to the soulless, superficial world around them are able to navigate it with integrity. Wolfe’s tone is exaggerated and ironic, but his characters are realistic, often based on real people. For instance, the mayor is loosely inspired by Ed Koch, and Reverend Bacon is based on Reverend Al Sharpton.

Though Wolfe intended the book as the quintessential New York novel, critics also cite it as an example of the "Great American Novel," a work that captures the essence of a particular period in American life. Wolfe's novel is part of a literary tradition that includes The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck, which similarly examine the spirit of American life. What qualifies Wolfe’s work as a Great American Novel is its sheer scale and panoramic sweep. Filled with diverse characters and locations, a multitude of voices and accents, and grand ambitions, the novel sums up the American dream's promises and perils.