Definition on the Book The Right Stuff - Essay Example

RSTUFF In Tom Wolfe’s book The Right Stuff, the stuff in question is hard to describe, but it appears easy for the to identify. The right stuff is a quality held by test-pilots and fighter pilots which the author concentrates on, such as Chuck Yeager. It is also a quality that unites many of the nation’s first astronauts, who are also profiled in the book. But many of these men are quite different, so that the same right stuff possessed by the straight-living, ultra-Christian Glenn; is also the same right stuff possessed by many of the hard-drinking astronauts who frequently cheat on their wives, drive drunk, and engage in other morally questionable behavior. Therefore, the right stuff is not morality; rather, it is something like a combination of masculinity, physical capability, a sense of humor, and courage. The right stuff represents a special kind of courage: the astronauts and pilots are not afraid to risk their lives, but one gets the sense that part of having the right stuff is also realizing that this is a calculated risk. In other words, the men in The Right Stuff do not risk their lives foolishly, and there is nothing rash or impromptu about their courageousness. A large part of having the right stuff involves confidence, but the simple word confidence is perhaps not enough to describe what is really meant. It is almost like in the book, the men who have the right stuff have so much confidence, that they actually believe that they are totally invulnerable. And this is in the face of circumstances that would make the average person very unconfident. The test pilots and, later, the astronauts, are in a very high risk profession. They have seen many of their friends and colleagues die, and yet, they must get up every day and do the same activity which they know has caused these many deaths. To accept the very real risk of death, while still maintaining this supreme level of confidence, seems to be one of the main hallmarks of the right stuff in Wolfe’s book. For example, Pete knows that many of his friends have crashed and burned at various obscure AF bases. However, “Pete never indicated for a moment that he thought any such thing could possibly happen to him. It seemed not only wrong but dangerous to challenge a young pilots confidence by posing the question. And that, too, was part of the unofficial protocol for the Officers Wife” (Wolfe, 2000). These wives also are portrayed in Wolfe’s book as having some degree of the right stuff, but it is right stuff by association: the right stuff itself remains a primarily masculine ideal as it is seen by Wolfe, involving heroic behavior in the face of extreme, deadly danger. Although the danger faced by the wives is mainly emotional, they still share some degree of the right stuff. The right stuff also carries physical attributes with it. As demonstrated by the pilots and astronauts in Wolfe’s book, the man with the right stuff has to be more than physically fit; he has to have a fitness level that approaches super-human. In the scene in which the test pilots are being groomed for being astronauts, the physicality of the right stuff comes through clearly, as the pilots share a sense of physical competition to do many of the superhuman tasks expected of them by the scientists. These are people who have trained their bodies to obey their minds no matter what, so the right stuff here is shown to be not just mental, but also physical. “In military flight training] the idea here seemed to be that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back in the last yawning moment--and then go up again the next day, and the next day, and every next day, even if the series should prove infinite” (Wolfe, 2000). To do this, the man with the right stuff needs not only mental toughness, but also extreme physical fitness. Having a sense of humor is another aspect of the right stuff that unites the pilots and astronauts. They go through a lot of stress, so due to this high level of stress, there appears to be an inverse angle of having fun and laughing, which are two of the best ways to fight stress. Even Glenn, who seems to be stuck-up and moral when compared to the jokes and antics of some of the pilots, shows himself to have a sense of humor, as when he humorously confronts the German scientists building the Mercury capsule and makes them build a window. Having a sense of humor also means that these men are able to think fast and still not take anything, especially themselves, too seriously. They face a lot of danger in the air, “But of course the pilots could not be in the air all of the time, and they found off-duty activities to complement their dangerous profession... Owning and driving a fast sports car and showing up punctually for beer call at the Officers’ Club thus became two more components of the right stuff” (Thompson, 2010). Although not all of the astronauts drank, so drinking may not be such an integral part of the right stuff, they did all have fast cars, and enjoyed a good joke. The unifying factors of the right stuff in Wolfe’s novel seem to be super-human courage in the face of deadly danger, masculinity, physical toughness, and a sense of humor. Although Wolfe shows through the wives (particularly in Glenn’s wife’s treatment of LBJ) that women can also have the right stuff, it is primarily made of masculine traits and roles. The men are not just mentally tough: they are also physically tough. Also, they do not let stress get to their heads too much, because at the end of the day, they are able to laugh and relax. REFERENCE Thompson, J (2010). The Right Stuff and Hero Worship http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1981/mar-apr/thomson.htm1 Wolfe, T (2000). The Right Stuff. New York: Harper Classics. Read More