The Pursuit of Happyness

The trigger of Gardner’s life-changing conversation with Bob Bridges and his decision to become a stockbroker is the “gorgeous, red Ferrari 308 […] slowly circling” the parking lot of San Francisco General Hospital (1). The Ferrari, a luxurious Italian sportcar, is an international symbol of affluence and worldly success. Gardner’s admiration of the car indicates that he is mentally prepared for a meteoric rise in living standards.

To Gardner, as well as being seductive and appealing to the parts of him that are a “red-blooded American male,” the car “symbolizes all that I lacked while growing up—freedom, escape, options” (3). This is especially alluring at a point in his life when he is stuck in a dysfunctional relationship with Jackie and the responsibilities of new fatherhood. His one-time dream of travelling and seeing the world has been postponed for the foreseeable future. But this encounter with the Ferrari “would crystallize in (his) memory—almost into a mythological moment that I could return to and visit in the present tense whenever I wanted or needed its message” (3). Thus, the image of freedom sustains him when he finds himself stuck in homelessness and has difficulty making ends meet.