Definition for “The Right Stuff” by Tom Wolfe

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Main body
Work Cited

Introduction

Tom Wolfe, the author of the book “The Right Stuff” is known as a writer who possesses an ability of creating pictures with words. He creates situations and characters, some of which are so real that it seems like you are sitting in one room with them. The book “The Right Stuff” is about pilots who participate in the U.S. postwar experiments. Writing this book Tom Wolfe was led by the desire to find out why the astronauts being perfectly aware of the danger of the space flight still decided to accept it. “The Right Stuff” teaches us a lot and tells us about things we might have never known before: “No woman is supposed to deliver the final news, and certainly not on the telephone” (Tom Wolfe, 2). And what is the most important and precious in “The Right Stuff” is that throughout the book the author tries to explain the concept of the “right stuff”.

The “right stuff’ is the necessary or ideal qualities such as courage, self-confidence, toughness and knowledge, needed for success in a given field or situation. In the case with the book by Tom Wolf the “right stuff” is set of physical and mental characteristics required by the job of a test pilot, it is a so-called virtue each of the pilots must have for the necessary fulfillment of the operations. This is a set of qualities which a real man is supposed to have; it is something that draws an invisible separation line between a boy and a man. No one needs boys on board the space ship. Only the presence of real men ready to meet danger face-to-face, knowing how to cope with any problem, ready to sacrifice their own life for the sake of their country can convince the crew that the flight even as dangerous as this one is worth taking.

Main body

One of the first necessary qualities to mention will be courage. Cowards have nothing to do on board the space ship where the pilots face danger every minute and risk their lives for the sake of their county: “… and the man’s superiors knew that the engine hadn’t just flamed out, but every unofficial impulse on the base seemed to be saying: “Hell, we wouldn’t give you a nickel for a pilot who hasn’t done some crazy rat-racing like that. It’s all part of the right stuff….” (Tom Wolfe, 23).

Another quality essential to any pilot is the feeling of self-confidence which means that he must be a hundred percent sure in what he does and hold his ground once he started doing something: “His faith in what was right was part of his righteous stuff” (Tom Wolfe, 138). To some extent, he should possess a “feeling of superiority, appropriate to him and to his kind, lone bearers of the right stuff” (Tom Wolfe, 29).

One more characteristic of the “right stuff” is the readiness to perform your destined function, in other words, your being operational: “This word, operational, was a holy word to Slayton. He was the King of Operational. Operational referred to action, the real thing, piloting, the right stuff.” (Tom Wolfe, 294).

And the final quality which a member of the “right stuff’ should possess is patriotism, devotion to his country and doing everything for the people of his country to be proud of him: “Now they had the one thing that had been denied them for years while the rest of the nation worshipped them so unquestioningly: acceptance by their peers, their true brethren, as test pilots of the space age, deserving occupants of the top of the pyramid of the right stuff.” (Tom Wolfe, 351).

All in all, courage, self-confidence, readiness to face your destined function and patriotism may be defined as the main constituents of the notion the “right stuff”. These are the qualities the pilots of the space ship should possess for the normal functioning of the crew and for the mission to be completed successfully.

Work Cited

Tom Wolfe. (2001). The Right Stuff. New York: Bantam Books.

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Definition for “The Right Stuff” by Tom Wolfe

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