Summary Of The Right Stuff By Tom Wolfe

First impressions are important, they can set the tone and the mind state of the perceiver permanently. This doesn't just apply to first impressions of people, but of literature as well. In the novel The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe, the first chapter perfectly sets up the arguments Wolfe continues to make throughout the story. Wolfe has a distinct stylistic voice that he uses in the first chapter to highlight the dangerous lives of test pilots and the pyramid of the right stuff. In this chapter Wolfe starts out with the wife of pilot Pete Conrad, she is worrying that something has happened to her husband and explains the paranoia and hallucinations that are side effects of being a pilot’s wife. When Pete Conrad becomes a test pilot at Pax River,

As the reader reads through The Right Stuff, there are noticeable [patterns in Wolfe's writing style. He repeats key phrases using the exact same wording to place importance on the message and arguments behind them. This chapter follows the life of Pete Conrad as he becomes a test pilot at Pax River, there the men are made to push the envelope of flying and try out these brand new planes. This is a dangerous job that requires incredible skill and only pilots with the right stuff, the godly stuff, survived. To highlight the bravery that Wolfe what's to show the readers he puts emphasis on the frequent and tragic deaths of the men in Conrad’s Flight Group 20. Wolfe repeats the phrase, “...and he was burned beyond recognition. And the bridge coats came out and they sang about those in peril in the air and then they put the bridge coats away”(Wolfe 9) this phrasing is used throughout the chapter. Pilots die frequently according to Wolfe in this chapter and he uses the same wording so that the reader notices the pattern. He wants to reader to understand that the job of a test pilot is treacherous and deadly, only a few of the men survive. These survivors are the ones with the right stuff, they are the ones with the capability to climb the ziggurat and reach the top. At the top of this unspoken ziggurat, or pyramid of the right stuff, are only the best and experienced

He creates realistic tones that highlight the seriousness and danger that is the life of a test pilot using gruesome language and detailed accounts of disasters. Repetition is another one of Wolfe’s stylistic preferences, by repeating key phrases and using the same wording to describe events, the reader knows these are important things. The first chapter sets up the reader to identify these main points of danger, the right stuff, and unspoken bravery, that are common threads through the novel and are the base of Wolfe’s argument. Wolfe believes that the test pilots, who put their lives right on the line every day, are the true holders of the right stuff. The astronauts and Project Mercury does not require the type of stuff that the grueling life of a test pilot requires and the first chapter supports all of that. As the book goes on everything gets tied back to the first chapter and the pilots with the right stuff. When project Mercury was announced and it was made clear that you did not have to be a pilot to be eligible to go to space the Pirates were outraged. Final seven contestants were revealed to the public they were treated like Godly men who were going to be the heroes of American Pride. Because of the tensions with the Soviet Union and the space race, the American public looked at these men as single combat warriors who were putting their lives on the