43 pages • 1 hour read
Chris GardnerThe Pursuit of Happyness
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 11-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “Roses in the Ghetto”
Gardner feels elated to have a roof over his head: ‘it was just this bare little key. But it was ours’’ (258). However, he and his son are still cautious about money; for example, they have to share a plate of food between them at the local diner, Mosell’s. Once Christopher is potty-trained, he is able to attend the Day Care Centre with the “Happyness” sign that gives the book its title.
While Gardner is mainly focused on fatherhood and his career, he acknowledges the romantic and sexual void in his life. He relates that he has sex with Jackie when she comes to visit Christopher; however, as far as Gardner is concerned, it is “a literal fuck you” because he has still not forgiven her for doubting his abilities (267).
At work, he learns a new principle of selling stocks from his colleague Gary Abraham: to find out what the customer wants to buy and supply them with the closest available equivalent. Abraham advises Gardner to find his unique strength as a stockbroker and Gardner decides that he is gifted in being able to handle volatility. On a day when the Dow Jones goes over 1000 and all the other stockbrokers want to sell everything, he has the strength and presence of mind to stay calm, knowing the market will open again. He decides that he will get the best kind of business if he is honest with his customers, and builds relationships based on trust. As Gardner’s salary increases, he sees a “shiny future” on the horizon and feels the wind at his back (268).
Chapter 12 Summary: “Sphere of Influence”
Gardner leaves Dean Witter for Bear Stearns, a rival brokerage firm run by “PSDs,” “Poor, Smart, with a deep Desire to become wealthy” (275).
As Gardner’s star rises at his new firm, he and Christopher move back to San Francisco’s Hayes Valley and are able to enjoy an affluent lifestyle: “This was the American dream, 1980s San Francisco style” (276).
From his boss, Marshall Geller, Gardner learns the importance of having a sphere of influence, which translates to a network of prominent contacts. Gardner then cold-calls some Texas oil millionaires, including a J.R., who makes racist jokes. They enter into a successful business relationship and Gardner makes money for them both; however, the jokes continue. When J.R. comes to visit Bear Stearns’ offices, Gardner sits at Geller’s desk and simply tells J.R., who had not expected that his stockbroker would be black, that he needs to do more business there:
“It seemed that he had undergone an epiphany and seen the light; it wasn’t a white thing or a black thing, it was a green thing” (283). They continue a relationship and Gardner makes $200,000 a year from him.
Two years later, Gardner moves to New York City, where all the big stockbrokers go. In his personal life, Gardner’s sporadic liaisons with Jackie have resulted in the birth of a baby girl, Jacintha, in 1985. Both children live with their mother, in Los Angeles, during Gardner’s New York years.
Gardner decides that his new niche in stockbroking will be to start managing money for African-American celebrities such as Oprah, but also on behalf of black institutions and entrepreneurs. By 1987, he has so much business that he decides to set up his own brokerage company, Gardner Rich & Company. He chooses Chicago as the location and attains the financial assistance of W.J. Kennedy III, chairman of North Carolina Medical Life Insurance Company, the largest minority-owned insurance company. Gardner’s vision extends to a “rainbow coalition of expertise,” full of PSDs(290). He seeks to expand the idea of ‘conscious capitalism,’ returning a share of his profits to the public sector.
Gardner considers that he has “made a round trip, returning to a spot not far from Milwaukee and Moms, as well as a town where [he has] plenty of relatives” (291). His two children move to be with him and grow up in Chicago as he breaks “the cycle of fatherless children that my own father had started” (291). His business booms and he works at nurturing his top client, the National Education Association. He also lives out his other dream of travelling and seeing the world.
Epilogue Summary: “Blessed Beyond the Dreams of a Thousand Men”
One of the places Gardner has travelled to, twice, is South Africa, where the apartheid regime was overturned in 1994 and the first black president, Nelson Mandela, ascended. The Epilogue opens in 2004; Gardner has been invited to witness the elections. Gardner agrees, as long as he is able to attend a one-on-one meeting with Nelson Mandela.
He recalls being immensely moved on his first meeting with Nelson Mandela, during which Mandela told him “welcome home son,” the complete antidote to the no-daddy blues (294). On this occasion, Gardner counts the votes of the election and sees Mandela’s ally, Thabo Mbeki, elected.
However, Gardner is nervous in preparation for his meeting with Mandela and orders a beautiful silk shirt similar to his hero. Mandela teases him about this and then Gardner tells him of his plans for using capital to create change and wealth in South Africa: “This is my opportunity to use everything that I’ve learned in twenty-five years of working Wall Street and capital markets to help make a difference in the world for people that look like me”(298). At the end of his meeting he takes a picture of the two of them and leaves, in further pursuit of what he calls “conscious capitalism.” (299) He goes to meet the Reverend Cecil Williams in order to generate more affordable housing for working people in San Francisco: “It was truly about coming full circle. It’s not business, it’s personal” (299).
On June 26, 2005, when Gardner gives a speech at the National Education Association in Los Angeles, he reminds his audience of the importance of mentorship in changing the fortunes of young people.
The ending is bittersweet, as Gardner recounts that Bettye Jean died ten years earlier, having at least had the opportunity to see him successful. Her last years were difficult, because “what her body and her psyche had been put through over the years had taken their toll” (302). He misses Bettye Jean and credits her with being the first to take a chance on him.
Chapters 11-Epilogue Analysis
These closing portions of the text show how Gardner has come full circle, from a man in need of help to one who has realized his dreams and is now in a position to help others.
Since childhood, Gardner has felt the stigma that came from being fatherless. He determines that regardless of his complex relationship with Jackie, he will always be present in their children’s lives. It is an important accomplishment for him that he ended the cycle of fatherlessness with his own children, whom he strives to protect and provide for. Gardner thus gains a sense of legitimacy from fathering, even as he was inadequately fathered himself.
However, although Gardner does not explicitly state this, his lack of a father figure has been an advantage because he has been creative about his choice of male role models and the lessons he gleans from them:“At the age of twenty-nine, I came to the realization that I was inordinately fortunate to have been mentored— either directly or indirectly—by extraordinary individuals, true role models” (261). The variety of attributes represented by men as diverse as the musician Miles Davis, the doctor Robert Ellis, and the broker Marshall Geller, enabled Gardner to become a uniquely successful individual.
Throughout this last portion of the text, there is the sense that Gardner is aware of himself as a part of a minority group: an African-American stockbroker. There are moments when he keeps his ethnicity ambiguous to get ahead, such as over the telephone at Dean Witter, and while dealing with the racist J.R at Bear Stearns. Eventually, his ability to generate “green,” or money, makes black and white irrelevant(283).
Nevertheless, when he has the means to strike out on his own, Gardner feels drawn to advancing the economic and social situation of black people, first in America and then internationally. His goals, in this respect, are moving targets, spanning a “rainbow coalition of talent” at his firm to further the promotion of trade initiatives that will help black South Africans escape the poverty trap (290).
