Stereotypes, Ignorance, and Racism Theme Analysis

“And then say what? say, ‘forget you’re hungry, forget you got shot inna back by some racist cop—Chuck was here? Chuck come up to Harlem—’”

“No, I’ll tell you what—”

“‘Chuck come up to Harlem and—’”

“I’ll tell you what—”

“Say, ‘Chuck come up to Harlem and gonna take care a business for the black community’?”

They’re going down a stairway. They’re clattering on some metal strips. He’s in one piece. The mob isn’t even on his heels. He’s safe—his heart sinks. They’re not even trying to follow him. They never really tried to touch him. And in that moment…he knows. He knows even before his mind can put it all together.

“I did the wrong thing […] I panicked. I’ve lost it all.”

All at once Sherman was aware of a figure approaching him on the sidewalk, in the wet black shadows of the town houses and the trees. Even from fifty feet away, in the darkness, he could tell. It was that deep worry that lives in the base of the skull of every resident of Park Avenue south of Ninety-sixth Street—a black youth, tall, rangy, wearing white sneakers. Now he was forty feet away, thirty-five. Sherman stared at him. Well, let him come! I’m not budging! It’s my territory! I’m not giving way for any street punks!

The black youth suddenly made a ninety-degree turn and cut straight across the street to the sidewalk on the other side. The feeble yellow of a sodium-vapor streetlight reflected for an instant on his face as he checked Sherman out.

He had crossed over! What a stroke of luck!

Not once did it dawn on Sherman McCoy that what the boy had seen was a thirty-eight-year-old white man, soaking wet, dressed in some sort of military-looking raincoat full of straps and buckles, holding a violently lurching animal in his arms, staring, bug-eyed, and talking to himself.

Thank God in heaven! What a relief! They could let their breaths out now. Miss Efficiency was a bigot. These days the thing about bigotry was, it was undignified. It was a sign of Low Rent origins, of inferior social status, of poor taste. So they were the superiors of their English baby nurse, after all. What a fucking relief.

He had saved a woman. The time had come to act like a man, and he had acted and prevailed. He was not merely a Master of the Universe; he was more; he was a man.

“You’re thinking about ‘honor students’ and ‘higher achievers’ and all that, and that’s natural enough, as I say. But at Colonel Jacob Ruppert High School, an honor student is somebody who attends class, isn’t disruptive, tries to learn, and does all right at reading and arithmetic.”

“Well, let’s use that standard. By that standard, is Henry Lamb an honor student?”

“By that standard, yes.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Rifkind.”

One of the Lion’s maxims was “A lie may fool someone else, but it tells you the truth: you’re weak.”

He was experiencing the resentment of those who discover that, despite their own grave condition, the world goes on about its business, heartless, without even so much as a long face.

[Kramer] saw it before the words were even out of his mouth…the drawing…by the courtroom artist…He could see it as if the TV screen were already right in front of him…Assistant District Attorney Lawrence N. Kramer…on his feet…his forefinger raised…his massive sternocleidomastoid muscles welling out…But how would the artist deal with his skull, where he had lost so much hair? Well, if the drawing did justice to his powerful frame, no one would notice. The courage and the eloquence…that’s what they would see. The whole city of New York would see it. Miss Shelly Thomas would see it.

I’m not superior, you oh-so-knowing, oh-so-ignorant fool! I’m one of them! My heart goes out to them! […] In short, he was learning for himself the truth of the saying “A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested.”

“I’m not Sherman McCoy anymore. I’m somebody else without a proper name. I’ve been that other person ever since the day I was arrested. I knew something…something fundamental had happened that day, but I didn’t know what it was at first. At first I thought I was still Sherman McCoy, and Sherman McCoy was going through a period of very bad luck. Over the last couple of days, though, I’ve begun to face up to the truth. I’m somebody else. I have nothing to do with Wall Street or Park Avenue or Yale or St. Paul’s or Buckley or the Lion of Dunning Sponget.”

“You know the way they can take a dog, a house pet, like a police dog that’s been fed and pampered all its life, and train it to be a vicious watchdog?”

“I’ve heard of it,” said Killian.

“I’ve seen it done,” said Quigley. “I saw it done when I was on the force.”

“Well, then you know the principle,” said Sherman. “They don’t alter that dog’s personality with dog biscuits or pills. They chain it up, and they beat it, and they bait it, and they taunt it, and they beat it some more, until it turns and bares its fangs and is ready for the final fight every time it hears a sound.”

“That’s true,” said Quigley.

“Well, in that situation dogs are smarter than humans,” said Sherman. “The dog doesn’t cling to the notion that he’s a fabulous house pet in some terrific dog show, the way the man does. The dog gets the idea. The dog knows when it’s time to turn into an animal and fight.”

Yes—but I’m doing something illegal! Around and around it went in his mind as the tape rolled on…And Sherman McCoy, he who had now vowed to be his animal self, discovered what many had discovered before him. In well-reared girls and boys, guilt and the instinct to obey the rules are reflexes, ineradicable ghosts in the machine.

“What makes you think you can come before the bench waving the banner of community pressure? The law is not a creature of the few or of the many.”