Essay On This Boy's Life By Tobias Wolff

“This Boy’s Life” is a memoir written by Tobias Wolff where he describes his childhood filled with difficulties and disappointment. From the first page, it is clear that Rosemary, his mother, is not a conventional parent. She harbors only good intentions and love for Tobias, however her bad judgement causes her well-meaning decisions to be detrimental to him. A specific example where this is particularly evident is when Toby writes profanity on school property. Even though the vice principal and two witnesses state it was Toby who committed the vandalism, Rosemary stubbornly refuses to believe that he could have done something so atrocious. She argues and even threatens the principal until he gives in and revokes Tobias’ sentence. Marian, however, …show more content…
One example is in her love life and her attraction to men who utilize violence to assert power. She continuously brings these men into her and Toby’s lives, never learning from her past mistakes. As a result Toby becomes wary of the fluctuating men in Rosemary’s life and has a hard time trusting them. Toby also feels responsible for keeping his mother away from harm, making him have to act like the parent in their relationship. An example of this is when Rosemary comes back from her date with Gil in tears. “[Rosemary] was crying softly...I rocked her and murmured to her. I was practiced at this and happy doing it, not because she was unhappy but because she needed me, and to be needed made me feel capable.” (page 55). Toby comforts Rosemary the way a parent does to their child and the passage suggests he has done it before. Another way Rosemary is not a good parent is her inability to provide Toby with a stable environment. Whenever life gets hard or unable to bear in one place, they simply escape to a new location. This constant uprooting causes Toby to become a loner and to have a bad choice in friends, as we see in his friendships in Seattle. Rosemary always runs away from her problems and never faces them, and Toby inherits this trait. This is evident when Toby lies to himself and denies responsibility for his actions, a

Show More

Related Documents: Essay On This Boy's Life By Tobias Wolff

Catcher in the Rye Essay