Paul’s Imaginary Revenge in Teddy Wayne’s The Great Man Theory

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although Teddy Wayne’s The Great Man Theory (2022) is most obviously a response to the Trump presidency, this essay explores how the novel also engages larger questions about political critique and a meaningful response to power. We analyze, in particular, the protagonist’s closing attack on a right-wing pundit in the context of the novel’s exploration of magical thinking, drawing special attention to Wayne’s references to the idealism of Hegel. This essay thus reveals Wayne’s core idea in this novel, that the persistence of the “great man theory” in American culture represents a perverse ideology of disempowerment that must be overcome.