The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Essay Example

This paper examines Sloan Wilson’s, the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.  The emphasis on examination of the social and cultural developments in the United States in the decade after World War 2.

Wilson examines the typical American family in the decade following the end of World War II.  We look at Tom and Betsy Rath in the class American family with three children, a nice home, steady job with regular income and every reason to be content with their quality of life.  Tom, however,  gets caught up in the rat race of corporate America and business life.  He ceased to dominate for each of self-discovery very has to reappraise his values and confront both past and future experiences with self honesty.  The book focuses upon the importance of taking control of your life in forging your own personal destiny.

The novel was made into a movie in 1956 starring Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones as Tom and Betsy Rath.  It was entered in the international Cannes festival film awards.  The film and novel later became widely recognized as the important contribution to social life and values in post-World War II American society.  Tom was an Army veteran and experienced horrific war conditions in Europe and the Pacific.  The novel stated that Tom killed 17 people in the war and that he suffered  from posttraumatic stress disorder, having flashbacks of some of the terrible incidents that he experienced during the war.  Initially, they both lived  in a poor community in Southport Connecticut, but eventually Tom gets a job in a public relations firm for  a New York-based TV network.  His new boss is a relatively humourless character and is driven by work results.  Tom is faced with having to impress his boss for a proposal of national mental health services.  Tom persuades his boss that the current campaign approach is wrong, and it misrepresents the values of the firm.  The boss is impressed by Tom and sees a quality that reminds him of his son, who was killed during the war.  As Tom’s  careers progresses  he sees how the stress and overwork ruined his bosses life and  marriage.  In the end.  Tom has to critically reappraise his own situation and ultimately, he turns down a high-pressure position so that he can spend more quality time with his family.

During the war years, many women assumed the jobs of men  and as such found a new liberation outside of the home.  Hence after the war a new realisation  set it in, whereby men returning from the war  could not just assume that their old jobs would be available when they returned home.  They also quickly realized that women could work alongside them at work.  This had an impact on the social situation of family with two potential working parents.  Women fought  for equal pay and equal rights at work.  After the war marriages babies, he joined the.  1945 to 1950 at this gave rise to the baby boom term.  Hence in the 1950s.  The concept of traditional marriage, came back into fashion with the mom looking after the kids and the man forged a career providing  for the family. ” I had wanted to be a doctor, but given the realities, I made the choice to be a career homemaker. The schools promoted that too, with domestic science courses, with the idea that women could be full-time wives and mothers — and this could be a satisfying role. And many women felt that way”  (May, 2003)

After the war the Americans learned the true extent of the Holocaust in Europe at the turn war Americans to support the civil rights movement over the next three decades.  The comparisons to the novel are mainly from a sociological perspective i.e. how family values revived and became more important during the 1950s.  The emphasis on spending more time within the family unit and raising children in accordance with family values.  Whilst the job was important in providing an income to the family, the concept of work life balance was introduced during this period. ” While external circumstances do work out well for the Raths, there are no Dickensian miracles. Tom and Betsy’s struggles to put meaning into their lives while meeting their obligations to the world can be resolved by them alone, and they do it. It’s a normal struggle, won or lost by people everyday.”  (Meador, 2003).

The true sociological concept of marriage is all about teamwork.  i.e., both partners working together in order to achieve joint  family objectives.  Society places tremendous demands and pressures on the family unit and this can cause both stress and division between the marital partners.  Marriages survive by overcoming these hurdles, but only by communicating and working together as a team will be unit survive in the long term.  In the novel, we see Tom as having an adulterous affair in Italy during the time of the war.  This resulted in and out of wedlock child, and the mother subsequently seeking financial compensation from Tom when he returned home to America.  In the first instance this made  Betsy extremely angry and resentful towards Tom.  She later changed her stance and became more understanding towards Tom and the circumstances that he was faced with; ultimately realizing a supportive role and helping Tom through this crisis.  Betsy comes to realize the true value and meaning of a wife  in a marital relationship.

An interesting sociological concept of the novel is the sub plots that take place.  Whilst Tom is making efforts to normalize to an American way of life after a horrific war, historic events catch up with him in his future life.  The affair that he had in Italy came back to haunt him in his current life.  America strove to seek a purpose after the war and looked towards domination by business and revitalizing its economy.  In some sense they created a stereotyped world that was relatively bland and created a culture of corporate greed and competition.  This manifested itself to the lives of the American people who essentially fuelled the engine.  Working long hours away from the family in order to achieve Corporate objectives became the norm.  This was also a time of great technological advancement and change with the emergence of a new Corporate America.  Firms like General Electric (GE) were creating new technology .. ” A time of prosperity saw the GE tradition of astonishing scientific ingenuity continue with discoveries that included membranes for water desalination, seeding the clouds to make rain, and the development of Lexan, a transparent plastic of unsurpassed impact resistance. On the home front, simple innovations led to ever more attractive and practical appliances.”  (General Electric, 2010).

The novel also focuses upon the concept of rehabilitation.  What the effects of a war have on an individual and the difficulty in trying to re-establish family values and reintegrate into a society that offers a very different support structure from the military apparatus.  It is difficult to erase the horrors of war and reconcile the stimulation of war with that of the more mundane peaceful office environment.  This is contrasted with Toms argument on the putting forward of a business presentation as compared to taking 17 lives in combat in the war.  The presentation seeming relatively trivial in the way of things as compared to life and death decisions that are made in combat.

Works Cited

General Electric. (2010). Science of Improvement. Retrieved 4 15, 2010, from General Electric: http://www.ge.com/innovation/timeline/eras/science_of_improvement.html

May, E. T. (2003, 12 11). Women at Work. Retrieved 4 15, 2010, from Tupperware: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/tupperware/sfeature/sf_women.html

Meador, S. (2003, 2 22). The Man in the grey flannel suit. Retrieved 4 15, 2010, from Rambles: http://www.rambles.net/wilson_grayflannel.html