The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

“Anybody’s life can be summed up in a paragraph.”

Tom’s attempt at an autobiography is both honest and deceptive. While the statistical, objective facts of his life can be contained in this paragraph, these facts say nothing about the profound depths of his character. The true biography is the negative space, the details which Tom does not want to include. Social etiquette and shame dictate the true contours of Tom’s identity; his desire to hide this truth from the world and obfuscate it with blunt facts is more telling of his personality than any biography he could write.

“Working for Great Men is a profession in itself, and the trouble is that when you're through with one Great Man, you can’t always find another.”

Dick warns Tom that working for men like Hopkins can be a risk. According to Dick, Hopkins is a “Great Man” in that he operates outside of the rules which govern the lives of other people. Tom just wants to make more money for his family, but he is being drawn into a world with stakes far higher than he could possibly imagine.

“The whole damn world is crazy, he thought.”

Tom is told that his train ticket does not cover the ride to South Bay due to an obscure bureaucratic rule. Tom criticizes the rule, attributing it to the “crazy” world he inhabits, but he pays for the ticket nonetheless. Tom is locked into a state of numbness, recognizing the bizarre nature of his world yet feeling powerless to do anything about it. Tom feels ill at ease in society but lacks the capacity to reject the same rules which he finds to be so unnerving.

“You think you're something special because a hell of a long while ago you were a good paratrooper.”

Tom is not only haunted by the sins of his past, but also the fear that killing other men may have been his only real talent, meaning that his attempts to segue into professional life are doomed to fail. Betsy recognizes this unspoken fear in her husband and confronts him, hoping that he will see the error of his ways. She wants him to be something more, while he is afraid that his best days are behind him.

“I am a good man, he thought, and I have never done anything of which I am truly ashamed.”

As Tom remembers illicit love affairs and the men he killed, he assures himself that he has done nothing to cause him shame. He repeats this to himself, though the words are wrapped in conditional flourishes. He is not “truly ashamed” of his actions, but he may cede that he is a little ashamed of himself. If Tom’s resistance breaks down and he allows himself to feel shame, he risks being overwhelmed by the guilt of his past deeds. His refusal to feel shame is a coping mechanism, a protection from his own suppressed morality.

“I must keep my suit neatly pressed like anyone else, for I am a very respectable young man.”

The suit is a symbol of conformity. As Tom’s mind is riddled with anxieties, he assures himself that the wearing of the suit will allow him to present a calm, collected image of himself to everyone around him. The clean, presentable suit hides the anxious, guilt-ridden mind, allowing the performance of conformity while Tom struggles to repress his deepest fears.

“Few people considered Greentree Avenue a permanent stop—the place was just a crossroads where families waited until they could afford to move on to something better.”

Greentree Avenue, the location of the house that Tom and Betsy loathe so much, is a holding pen for American ambition. The neighborhood functions as a liminal space, intended to be passed through on the way to grander, wealthier neighborhoods. No one intends to live on Greentree Avenue for long, meaning that the street becomes a repository of resentment, filled with young couples whose only desire is to leave. Anyone who is content is ostracized for not buying into the social expectations of 1950s America.

“I cannot imagine your killing anyone.”

Tom and Betsy may be married, but they live in different worlds. Betsy, who has been deliberately insulated from Tom’s past, cannot imagine her husband killing anyone. Meanwhile, Tom knows all too well how many people he has killed, even including his own friend. He can easily picture himself killing, while Betsy cannot, which is a testament to how thoroughly he has hidden this part of his life from his wife.

“Betsy whistled. ‘You mean you work for that guy?’ she said.”

The Hopkins mansion in South Bay is impressive from the outside, but the magnificent display of luxury disguises the rot at the heart of the Hopkins marriage. Betsy is impressed by the building, just as everyone else is impressed. Dramatic irony, in which the audience is aware of the contrast between the impressive architecture and the marital strife, illustrates how every couple in this society is hiding their woes behind the performance of wealth and success.

“Things had gone pretty well until 1943, when Robert, their son, had been killed in the war.”

Hopkins is a workaholic who refuses to slow down, even at the expense of his marriage and health. He works tirelessly to achieve his ambitions, but the brutal death of his son is a reminder that there are parts of the world which are beyond his control. No number of meetings, developments, or hard work from Hopkins could have saved Robert, so his son’s death serves as a tragic reminder to Hopkins that his hard work has limitations. Despite this, he cannot bring himself to slow down.

“The trouble hadn’t been only that he didn’t believe in the dream any more; it was that he didn’t even find it interesting or sad in its improbability.”

Tom does not find the American Dream to be wrong. Instead, he is simply disillusioned with an idea which seems frankly ridiculous to him. He becomes utterly uninterested in the society in which he lives, but sees no other option than to live out his life in mundane indifference. His experience of America and war makes him so disillusioned that society as a whole seems hollow and vapid.

“You're talking like a typical American woman.”

This accusation has a hidden ramification, known to the audience but not to Betsy. During this moment of heightened emotion, Tom is subconsciously comparing his American wife to his Italian mistress. He may not admit as much, but he cannot help but compare Betsy to Maria, particularly during times when he is arguing with Betsy. Maria is always at the back of Tom’s mind, symbolizing an idealized alternative life he might have led.

“You know, for a while there, I wasn’t sure what kind of a man I had married.”

Betsy’s relief is undercut by the dramatic irony of her statement. She is thankful that Tom has abandoned his cynical careerism but she still does not know the truth. She does not know about Tom’s affair, nor his secret child, while Tom is very anxious about Maria’s wellbeing. Betsy’s relief is misplaced: She believes that she does know her husband, yet she does not know him at all.

“People love in different ways.”

Hopkins claims to love his family in his own, unique way—by supporting their lavish lifestyle—yet he struggles to form an emotional bond with his daughter because he cannot escape from his work mindset. He is ignorant of her emotional needs, treating her struggles and their relationship as professional problems that he can solve with meetings and plans. Hopkins may love Susan, but the only way he can express this love is the same way that he expresses every other emotion: through work.

“Taking him by the hand, Maria had led him to the statue of the Virgin.”

When she takes Tom to the church in Rome, Maria does not only introduce him to her form of religion. At the same time, she is symbolically introducing him to the feelings of guilt and shame that will remain with him long after he parts from her. This brief affair and the child it produces will linger in Tom’s mind like a regretted sin, one which he must confess to others so as to atone.

“I’m not at all sure I’m the man to take the leadership and I’m so pressed for time.”

After his speech, Hopkins is urged by the medical professionals to involve himself in the mental health campaign. He feigns modesty, performatively distancing himself from the exact role that the speech was intended to push him toward. In this way, Hopkins is performing the exact kind of cynical manipulation that Betsy decried in Tom. He is manipulating those around him by masking his intentions so that people hear what they want to hear. Tom sees himself in Hopkins.

“The poor guy’s just lonely, and he’s trying to hire a son.”

Tom admires Hopkins but, for the first time, he also pities him. He has seen how much of a toll Hopkins’s immense workload has taken on him, and he has decided that he does not want to live in the same way. He may covet the wealth and status of a man like Hopkins, but he has seen firsthand the sacrifices which must be made to achieve this. He does not want to become Hopkins’s hired son because he no longer wants to follow in Hopkins’s footsteps.

“Maybe it’s better for my kids to begin the way they are, he thought.”

Tom compares his childhood to his children’s experiences. He attended an expensive private school, while they attend a cramped and dilapidated public school. This makes Tom feel bad, as he is not able to offer his children the same advantages which he once enjoyed. He reasons to himself that this poorer upbringing will help them learn valuable lessons, but he cannot convince himself that his children are not being unfairly deprived.

“If there were some cause worth working for, I might not mind so much.”

At the beginning of the novel, Tom was working for a charity. While he was not paid much, he appreciated that he was working for a good cause. Now, working in broadcasting, he has far greater career prospects but lacks any enthusiasm for his job. Tom is slowly coming to the realization that the job he actually wanted is the one he left behind.

“Do you realize that we haven’t been away from each other that long since the war?”

Betsy casually references the time they were apart during the war. To her, the time they were apart during the war is a distant memory. She raises the subject as a fanciful aside, unable to know just how much Tom still thinks about the war. They were apart and Betsy was alone, but Tom was with Maria. He did not have the same experience of loneliness as she did, so her words carry an additional emotional weight for Tom, one which Betsy cannot yet comprehend.

“Somebody has to do the big jobs!”

Hopkins defends his work habits after Tom admits that he cannot dedicate his life to his profession. This outburst is fueled not only by defensiveness but also by a sense of envy. Hopkins has sacrificed his family to rise so high, and he envies Tom’s capacity to reject power and influence in favor of emotional fulfillment. The outburst is intended to validate Hopkins’s decisions for his own benefit, as much as it is to explain his decisions to Tom.

“I wish you'd quit drinking, if only because it makes me feel so lonely.”

Tom, like many other male characters in the novel, drinks heavily and often. Each meeting involves hard liquor or cocktails and, as Tom frets about his personal life, he leans even harder into this alcohol misuse. Betsy recognizes the toll the alcohol takes on her husband. When he drinks, he leaves her behind, and—as he did during the war—he leaves her alone.

“We’ve learned to drag along from day to day without any real emotion except worry.”

Betsy is the first to explicitly acknowledge that the marriage is a performance. Since the war, they have learned to project the image of love and happiness without feeling the actual emotions. Their marriage is kept up for the sake of appearances, which is one of the chief motivations for any action in this society. The characters are aware that they live in a performative world, so Betsy’s blunt words become important because she is the first to publicly acknowledge her dissatisfaction with pretending to be happy.