52 pages • 1 hour read
Sloan WilsonThe Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1955A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 25-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
Tom lies down in his hotel room in Atlantic City, thinking that he’s being unfair to Betsy in continuing to think of his time in Rome with Maria as “the happiest of his life” (174). With Maria, he had lived in the moment, whereas his relationship with Betsy was either too juvenile (before the war) or too preoccupied with the future (after the war). With Maria, he took long drives and had picnics in the Roman countryside. He had learned about Maria’s tragic past in the bloody chaos of the war. In the ruins of a bombed villa, they built a fire from the wreck of an expensive piano. Rain and military planes passed overhead. He declared his love for her as they returned to Rome, with Tom counting down the minutes until he needed to check in with his unit. In the following days, he played the mandolin for her as he had done for Betsy before the war. In his hotel room, he thinks about the difference between Betsy and Maria.
Chapter 26 Summary
Tom returns from Atlantic City and arranges a meeting with Hopkins to discuss the speech. Hopkins has recently redrafted the speech and, to Tom’s horror, seems to want to “sell mental health the way they sell cigarettes” (182). The speech is long, repetitive, and vapid, but Tom cannot say that to Hopkins. At home, he asks Betsy to read the speech. She is unimpressed with the speech and unimpressed with Tom’s cynical plans to tell Hopkins what he wants to hear. They quarrel, eventually going to bed amid an aura of lingering resentment.
Chapter 27 Summary
Saul Bernstein visits the First National Bank and asks the president, Walter Johnson, for information about the respective bank balances of Tom and Edward. The former butler has sent Bernstein a copy of a document in which Florence Rath left her house to him. The document is dated after her final will. Though not a legal will, it might be enough to win Edward some share of the dead woman’s estate. Bernstein is determined to find out what the document means and whether it is even real. Johnson reveals that Edward has considerable savings, built up from deposits in various amounts. Bernstein investigates further, learning that Edward was stealing money from his employer through a series of kickbacks. Bernstein develops a clearer idea of Edward’s situation.
Chapter 28 Summary
Helen Hopkins asks her husband to come to South Bay to discuss their daughter, Susan, who is refusing to go to college. Hopkins delays his meeting with Tom and instead goes to his South Bay mansion, where he typically spends little time. Helen tells her husband that Susan attends many parties and, since she will eventually be very rich, Helen is concerned that Susan will get into trouble. Hopkins is surprised to learn that his daughter is something of a celebrity and that she is dating a wealthy young man named Byron Holgate. She has also been seen with other men. Hopkins does not know how to help; he praises Helen’s parenting and promises to do what he can. If he does not, Helen says, she will seek a divorce.
Chapter 29 Summary
Ahead of Tom’s meeting with Hopkins, Caesar Gardella comes to him. Gardella reveals that Maria, her son, and her husband have disappeared. He will continue to ask people in Italy for help in tracking them. Gardella leaves and Tom speculates about where Maria might have gone with his son. He imagines how he could tell Betsy about Maria, realizing that he hardly knows Betsy at all. His thoughts are interrupted by Hopkins, summoning him to the meeting. They talk about the speech over cocktails. Rather than the cautious, cynical approach he had planned, however, Tom directly tells Hopkins that the speech is not very good as it “doesn’t say anything” (201). Hopkins is enthused by a possible change in direction. Tom promises to redraft the speech and, when he returns home, he reveals to Betsy that he took her advice. She is relieved.
Chapter 30 Summary
Hopkins clears space in his schedule to talk to Susan in his New York apartment. He speaks to her about her plans for the future and for the money that she may one day inherit from him. Susan believes that money has ruined her parents’ lives, so she claims to have no interest in it. She criticizes her father for working so hard. She would rather have a good time at “beautiful parties.” Realizing that his daughter has no interest in the earning of money but a great deal of interest in the spending of it, he invites her to spend more time with him, either at his job or his apartment, so that she learns responsibility. Susan rejects his declarations of parental love and flees the apartment.
Chapter 31 Summary
Edward visits Bernstein’s office, where the lawyer Sims is waiting. Sims gives Edward a preview of how any court proceeding concerning his document might go. He accuses Edward of being dishonest, suggesting that he tricked an old woman into signing a document that she did not understand, all while stealing from her regularly. If Edward officially signs away any claims on the estate, then he will be able to walk away without being charged. Angrily, Edward signs documents and relinquishes his claim. Sims plans to deliver the good news to Tom, though Bernstein adds that any real estate development on the estate will have to be delayed, ruining Tom’s plans to make money soon. A public hearing will be held soon.
Tom is pleased with his latest draft of the speech, as is Hopkins. Betsy telephones with the good news and they make dinner plans to celebrate. Heading to Hopkins’s office, Tom rides in the elevator with Gardella, who says nothing. Tom and Hopkins walk to a restaurant, passing St. Patrick’s cathedral. Outside the cathedral, Tom sees a woman and a child. The sight reminds him of Maria and robs him of the pleasure of success He cannot concentrate as Hopkins praises the speech.
Chapter 32 Summary
Hopkins prepares to deliver his speech at the conference in Atlantic City. Tom watches from the audience, hearing his words come from Hopkins’s mouth. After the speech, the crowd applauds. Doctors urge Hopkins to take up the responsibility of dealing with the mental health crisis, just as Hopkins and Tom hoped they would.
Chapters 25-32 Analysis
After being hired by Hopkins and Ogden, Tom is given one task: to draft a speech that will convince the world that Hopkins is the man to tackle the mental health crisis in America. Over the course of numerous weeks and numerous drafts, Tom feels no closer to the ideal speech. He approaches the problem from all angles, unable to capture the tone and rhetoric his corporate bosses desire. In this moment, Tom is faced with a critical decision. He can continue to plug away at refining a speech he believes is fundamentally ineffective, or he can voice his honest opinion to his bosses and risk their displeasure. Betsy, throughout the novel, has urged Tom to be more open and honest. She wants him to take the latter approach, but Tom has a cynical tendency that directs him to try to please his bosses even when he disagrees with them. Finally, however, Tom snaps. He is direct in his criticism of the speech, and almost immediately, he is rewarded with success. He not only receives praise from Hopkins, but he feels better about himself. After seeing the success of the speech firsthand, he is validated in his direct, honest approach, and for the rest of the novel, he will demonstrate that he has internalized Betsy’s advice. He takes control over his corporate existence, using honesty as a means of securing agency over his future.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is structured in a largely linear fashion, but includes occasional flashbacks to Tom’s past. As Tom remembers the traumas and anxieties of his past, particularly those from World War II, the novel explores The Burden of Hidden Trauma. Importantly, these flashbacks are presented as interior monologues, limited to Tom’s thoughts and never shared with the outside world. The audience is given a brief and private glimpse into Tom’s past as a way to illustrate the anxieties of his present. This flashback structure contrasts the past with the present, showing how Tom’s fear of death and guilt at his failure to save his friend fueled his affair and his refusal to be honest with his wife. By placing the traumatic past alongside the anxiety of the present, the novel informs the reader that Tom’s past continues to haunt him in a very real way. This movement back and forth in time suggests The Illusory Nature of the American Dream. Tom’s American dream requires that he keep moving forward, but in reality he cannot escape the past.
When Tom first tells Betsy that he will go to work for Ralph Hopkins, they drive past the Hopkins mansion in South Bay. Betsy is immediately impressed that Tom will work so closely with a man so evidently powerful and wealthy. Unbeknownst to her, however, the Hopkins marriage is—like so much else in 1950s America—a performance. Hopkins and his wife Helen are estranged. She lives in the mansion while he has chosen to dedicate his life to his work. He simply cannot accommodate a family in his demanding routine and has sent the family away to the mansion while he maintains the apartment in the city. To outsiders, the Hopkins’ marriage appears happy and successful. To those trapped inside the marriage, however, this veneer of happiness is drawn over a much more troubled reality. Even the most successful character in the novel, even the man who has risen to the top of the corporate structure, has had to sacrifice so much that the value of his success is called into question.
