The Bonfire of the Vanities: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

The next day, when Lawrence Kramer wakes up, he fantasizes about kissing a woman in brown lipstick who he recently saw. He wonders what would stop him and then he remembers his wife, Rhoda, in bed beside him. Kramer thinks that Rhoda, at 29, is already turning into her mother. The two look the same and talk the same. Kramer and Rhoda live in an Upper West Side rent-stabilized apartment that costs $888 a month. Without rent stabilization, they’d never be able to afford it.

Kramer and Rhoda also pay $525 a week to a nurse named Glenda, who helps out with their new baby. Glenda is English, and Kramer is intimidated by her English accent. Rhoda gets up and turns on the Today show, which is broadcasting footage of the riot at the Mayor’s town hall in Harlem from the night before. While they watch the footage, Glenda makes racist remarks about Black people. Kramer and Rhoda exchange a look of relief. They know that racism is a sign of “inferior social status,” and they’re both pleased to realize that they’re superior to Glenda.

Kramer leaves and walks to the subway to go to work in the Bronx, where he is the assistant district attorney. On the way, he sees his former law school classmate, Andy Heller. Heller’s attire, and his hired car, are lavish and project significant wealth. In law school, Kramer felt superior to Heller, who’d chosen to work downtown at a tiny law firm where he would spend his first five or ten years proofreading someone else’s legal work. Kramer, on the other hand, imagined himself duking it out face-to-face in courtrooms. Now, though, Kramer avoids Heller because Kramer doesn’t want Heller to see firsthand his (Kramer’s) more modest lifestyle.

On the subway, Kramer takes stock of the proliferation of running shoes, which, he thinks, are a sign of people’s modest means as he travels into the Bronx. Kramer is also wearing running shoes and carries his brown dress shoes in a plastic shopping bag. When three teenagers who are Black board the train car, Kramer tenses and readies himself for a confrontation, but the teenagers walk past him. Kramer gets off the subway at 161st Street, right by Yankee Stadium. As he walks to work from there, he thinks of his father’s high hopes for him and how, even though he is a lawyer, he still feels like a disappointment, both to himself and to his father.

When Kramer nears the District Attorney’s office, he sees a judge, Myron Kovitsky, pull up in his car. Kramer thinks of how meager his salary is in comparison to the judge’s. Kramer then hears men shouting insults at him. One of the people yells an antisemitic insult at him, and Kramer wonders how the man even knows he’s Jewish. Eventually, Kramer realizes that the insults are coming from the back of a Department of Corrections van. Kramer tries to walk as fast as possible away from the van.

Kovitsky then approaches the car and asks the driver why he’s letting the prisoners in the back accost passersby. The driver shrugs. Kovitsky walks to the back of the van and spits on a mesh screen over the open window. The men in the back of the van stop yelling insults. Kovitsky walks away, and Kramer rushes to catch up to him. He praises Kovitsky and says he can’t believe he got the men to stop. Kovitsky curses the van’s driver and then roughly asks Kramer why he’s wearing running shoes. Kramer grows more depressed about his station in life as he talks to the judge. He decides then that he’s going to rise up and change his circumstances, even if he must do something desperate to break out of his current place in life. He then thinks again about the woman with the brown lipstick.