“If you ever meet a man as truthful as a windsock, you have just met a hell of a man.”
Col. Meecham—AKA the Great Santini—is a hard-nose kind of guy who values truthfulness very highly. He likes his men straightforward and honest, like a windsock. The simile testifies to this appreciation of such a character trait.
“You’ve also met a real dumb ass.”
Of course, he’s also been around long enough to know that honesty brings problems for he usually follows this observation about the windsock with this metaphor. Honesty is a great policy, but it is hardly wise to use it injudiciously. Clearly, the Great Santini is a complex kind of man, despite outward appearances to the contrary.
“this little girl just whipped you good.”
One of the most famous metaphors in the entire novel, thanks to the popularity of the movie. The Great Santini has just lost for the first time to his son in a game of one-on-one basketball and he simply cannot bear. After following his son up the stairs bouncing the ball off the back of his head the entire way up, the father unleashes what he views as the ultimate insult any man can give a son: “You’re my favorite daughter. I swear to God you’re my sweetest little girl.” But his son turns it around back on him with the most supremely satisfying metaphor in the entire book.
Hogs and Troops
Colonel Meecham is always and only a soldier. He has no training to do anything and possesses few skills attend to any other way. Whether on base or at home, in the cockpit of a fighter jet or in the kitchen of his house, the Great Santini views the rest of the world as fellow soldiers. He routinely refers to his children as hogs or the troops to the point that this becomes a metaphor for his entire way of viewing anyone who is not his military superior.
The Great Santini
Colonel Meecham’s nickname is never explained. Unlike the usual tradition in such things, nobody gave him this nickname; it was self-applied. It is also one of the great mysteries of the novel. Why Santini? Why the nickname of a magician? What does it mean? What does it really stand for? Meecham is one of late 20th-century America’s most frustrating characters. By all normal measures of literature, he should be the villain and yet he is not. But he’s certainly not the hero or even the protagonist. He is in a sense, unknowable: like any good magic trick.
