A Man In Full

“Atlanta had never been a true Old Southern city like Savannah or Charleston or Richmond, where wealth had originated with the land. Atlanta was an offspring of the railroad business […] created from scratch barely 150 years ago, and people had been making money there on the hustle ever since.”

The novel’s setting in Atlanta showcases the clash between the old, bygone world of the antebellum South and the new, brash materialistic world of gleaming towers and banks. Atlanta, a relatively new city, has allowed people like Charlie to build themselves up from scratch. However, Charlie hankers for the appearance of old money: the ownership of a plantation. Caught between the two worlds, Charlie hemorrhages money and lands himself in a dilemma.

“A quail shoot was a ritual in which the male of the species acted out his role of hunter, provider, and protector, and the female acted as if this was part of the natural, laudable, excellent, and compelling order of things.”

These lines illustrate Charlie’s antiquated, sexist, and conservative values. When he feels Elizabeth and Serena mock him during the quail hunt, he wishes to himself they would stay quiet. He believes that the natural order of the hunt is that the men act and the women admire. Ironically, Charlie, at 60, is hardly the dashing hunter figure he perceives himself to be.

“Adorning his neck was a gold chain so chunky you could have used it to pull an Isuzu pickup out of a red clay ditch.”

One of the hallmarks of Wolfe’s writing is his use of “petits faits vrais,” or tiny, small facts to build up a character. An example of this literary technique, the line above reveals Fareek’s vanity through the size of his gold chain. The comparison of the gold chain to a tow chain big enough to pull a huge car out of sticky mud blends simile and imagery.

“For seventy-five years the bank had been called the Southern Planters Bank and Trust Company. But now that seemed too stodgy […] and above all, too Old South. Planters was a word humid with connotations of cotton plantations and slavery. So, Planters had been sterilized and pasteurized into planners.”

The clash between old and new values is a recurrent motif in the text. To survive, institutions must adapt to the self-conscious, politically correct values of the contemporary age. Thus, Peepgass notes, Planters Bank must evolve into the neutral PlannersBanc. However, the text suggests the quest for political correctness often leads to the loss of unique traits: Planters is described as being “sterilized and pasteurized” into its new, antiseptic name.

“‘We’re going to have a lender’s cactus.’

[…]

‘Are you trying to say caucus?’ […]

‘No, cactus,’ said the Artiste with a merry smile. ‘This time we want all the pricks on the outside.’”

An example of the text’s use of wit, this exchange between Harry Zale, the workout artiste, and an increasingly annoyed Charlie pivots on a pun on the word caucus. A lender’s caucus is the term for a bank meeting. Here, Harry asks Charlie and his team to step outside so the bankers can have a meeting. He changes the word to cactus so he can call Charlie and his team “pricks.”

“A weevil with Yes! In his heart, he burrowed back into the cliff for eleven more eight-pound blocks of frozen beef shanks. The evening had just begun.”

The text uses the metaphor of a weevil to highlight both Conrad’s tenacity and his insignificance. Like a determined weevil burrowing into mud, Conrad keeps at his task. However, the task is so repetitive and huge that it makes him feel helpless as an insect.

“Your first wife married you for better or for worse. Your second wife, particularly if you were sixty and she was a twenty-eight-year-old number like Serena—why kid yourself?—she married you for better.”

Charlie’s observation is an example of the novel’s canny use of universal human truths and wisdom. In a rare moment of clarity, Charlie admits to himself that Serena did not wed him out of love alone. Of course, he fails to mention that the same is true for him as well.

“‘Race riot?’ […]

‘That’s exactly what I said. In Atlanta I can’t think of any two words that panic people more. It’s the fear that’s always beneath the surface.’”

Wes tells Roger that if Elizabeth’s accusation against Fareek becomes public, it may ignite a race riot. Roger finds the extreme scenario unlikely, but Wes reminds him that in a racially charged city like Atlanta, the extreme may well be the mundane. Beyond that, Wes hints that the case can be used to exploit people’s fear of a race riot. If people can be convinced the case could become a tinderbox, they might want to help Wes avoid such a scenario. Wes’s plan to manipulate the Elizabeth-Fareek case shows that he typifies the expedient, cunning politician.

“For, Christ’s sake, art and architecture aren’t Black or white, they’re just art and architecture!”

When Wes teases Roger about liking “greyboy,” or white, architecture, Roger lashes out. However, Roger’s statement about art not having a context rings false as well. Ironically, Roger himself notes the African origins of the Yoruban art in Wes’s office and thinks Wes is using the art to seem more connected to his roots. Thus, Roger himself cannot see art as just art.

“She had every right to be what her own mother had been at the age of fifty-three…a matron…yes, a matron!…a queen!…Immovably secure in her family and in society.”

Martha’s observations unpack the pressure on women to appear young and conventionally beautiful. As Martha works out to achieve the fashionable physique of her time, she reflects that she should have had the luxury of letting go of societal expectations and looking her age. While “matronly” may seem like code for “dowdy,” Martha uses the word to mean stately and queenly, a woman comfortable in her own skin.

“Just as his mom and dad had never thought twice about letting appointments go with the flow, he was obsessive about keeping them.”

Here, Conrad’s actions are placed in the context of his upbringing. His need for structure is juxtaposed with his parents’ nonconformist attitudes.

“The nerve of Serena…and then he realized he had broken one of his own cardinal rules, which was: in dealing with subordinates and women, never justify, never explain, never back off.”

Charlie exemplifies an outdated, boorish masculinity, especially in the first half of the text. Here, when Serena warns him against being politically incorrect before guests, he fumes inwardly at allowing a woman to demonstrate so much control over him. The comparison of women to subordinates demonstrates both his classist and sexist beliefs.

“The stallion came crashing down on the mare’s back and drove his enormous penis towards her yawning vulva. The very ground shook beneath Charlie and his band of guests. The quake rattled their innards. The planets collided.”

These lines showcase the narrative’s use of graphic detail to enliven the text. The horse intercourse is described in hyperbolic terms because it is being seen through Charlie’s eyes. Charlie views the mating as a cosmic event celebrating the power of the male. The truth is that it is a highly engineered breeding being carried out in front of embarrassed guests.

“‘They can talk about gay rats till they’re blue in the face […] But there’—he gestured toward the stallion and the mare—‘there’s the heart of it. […] [T]he male and the female, and that’s it.’”

Charlie often displays homophobic attitudes in the text, including using slurs. Here, he uses the breeding between horses to deny gay rights. Charlie’s behavior is outlandish and an instance of Wolfe’s use of satire.

“No one could fail to be swept up by this music, thought Roger, not even Roger Too White who admired Igor Stravinsky. It vibrated in your bones and resonated in your solar plexus […] It made you feel a whole lot less like a […] Roger White.”

Marking an important moment in Roger’s journey toward seeking his roots, the lyrics and music of the old spiritual make Roger feel connected to the history of Black people. Both Stravinsky and the spiritual are mentioned in the same passage, signaling that to feel whole, Roger must accept and revel in both kinds of music.

“And then Epictetus said: ‘We must die. But must we die groaning? We must be imprisoned […] but must we whine as well? […] My leg you will chain—yes, but my will—no, not even Zeus can conquer that.’”

With Stoic philosophy a key motif in the novel, the text contains several examples from the writings of Epictetus. Here, Conrad is drawn to the philosopher’s reflections on imprisonment. Since Conrad reads the words in jail, he feels Epictetus speak directly to his own experience, nearly 2,000 years after these words were recorded.

“Da new fish […] dey t’ink so If dey stay real quiet kine, If dey make no ass […] den dey going stay eenveesible. […] Cannot, brah! You edah did t’ing or you one nodda t’ing. […] No do no mo’ notting, brah. Use da mouth.”

One of the characteristic features of Wolfe’s use of dialogue is his propensity to record accents and idiomatic speech. These lines, spoken by Five-O, are an example of the use of idiomatic speech. Five-O tells Conrad that it is a myth that staying quiet saves you from bullies. This depiction of Five-O’s vernacular highlights the text’s often stereotypical portrayal of people of color.

“Like the bull, the man of noble nature does not become noble all of a sudden: he must train through the winter and make ready, and not lightly leap to meet things that concern him not.”

One of the most quoted passages from Epictetus in the text, these lines use the metaphor of the noble bull to describe the man of character. The most important aspect of a noble nature is that its character is not built in a day but is the accumulation of a series of principled decisions. The metaphor of the bull evokes Charlie’s self-image as a strong bull with a powerful back, foreshadowing Charlie’s conversion to Stoic philosophy.

“The rich warmth of the coffee, the richness of the bread, the ambrosial sweetness of the preserves, the translucence of the bone China […] the ancient gardener kneeling in the dirt in his puttees to maintain the perfect little vista—the luxury of it all course through Peepgass’s central nervous system as a sensation.”

Not only is this passage an example of Wolfe’s maximalist, detailed prose style, but it also showcases his use of hyperbole and satire. The hyperbolic expressions show the extent to which Peepgass is moved by the luxury and beauty of Martha’s home; the satire here is that the toiling gardener—kneeling in the dirt—is part of Peepgass’s vision of heaven. Peepgass ignores the incongruous juxtaposition of the old man working in the mud and the young Peepgass enjoying the fruits of his labor.

“They were the raggediest, maggotiest collection of men and women that had ever assembled here on the fortieth floor of the Peachtree Olympus. Their name was […] the Press.”

Wolfe’s use of satire and humor is put to metatextual use in these lines. The narrative’s self-referential critique of the press is grounded in Wolfe’s own career as a journalist.

“Then Val McNutter pivoted on her high-heeled pumps, and this and that and them and those went hither, wither, crevice, crevasse.”

An example of the way female characters are hypersexualized in the text, these lines objectify young Val, Buck McNutter’s wife. As Val walks away from the men in her living room, she is described as a sashaying mass of curves. The text uses rhyme and alliteration—hither, wither, crevice, crevasse—to capture her sinuous movements.

“The boy was like the man he told him about, Cleanthes, who had a job as a day laborer but impressed all who came in contact with him lie a ‘hill-bred lion, trusting in his might, like Ulysses washed ashore.”

The novel is filled with allusions and literary references to Greek mythology and culture, suggesting that the harmony sought by people like Conrad and Charlie can only be found in a culture vastly different from contemporary America. Cleanthes was a Greek Stoic philosopher known for his expert boxing skills. Charlie compares Conrad to Cleanthes, on account of both his nobility and his boxer’s fists, and also to Ulysses (Odysseus), the Homeric hero, who has to pass several trials on his way home.

“You don’t understand women, Charlie, you really don’t. Man at his most conniving is no match for Woman at hers.”

These lines, assigned to Serena, showcase the text’s limited depiction of women. Framed as Serena is trying to convince Charlie that Elizabeth is a liar, the lines in fact underscore that the novel is primarily aligned with men’s perspectives. Further, the conniving woman could well be Serena herself since at this point, she may be convincing Charlie to defend Fareek only to save their fortune.