Personal Review

After finishing Tobias Wolff’s memoir, “This Boy’s Life,” I tend to lean towards indifference in regards to the novel. While I liked the idea of reading a memoir and reliving someone’s life experiences, I did not feel complete emotion from the author. While generally I enjoy a simplistic prose, I feel Wolff did not entirely manipulate it enough to draw any feeling of wonder from the reader. It seemed as if Wolff was too open with his memories as it was easy to define his character and left little to the imagination. It is difficult to give an unbiased opinion of this novel, as personally I do not enjoy non-fiction literature.

Though there were things I did not find enjoyable, I found things to appreciate in Wolff’s work. Because Wolff did use a simplistic in writing his novel, he counteracted this with his imagery and dialogue. Wolff’s use of imagery made the reader feel as if they were living the moment. The dialogue made the characters come to life as Wolff included actual thoughts and words from real people. I liked that the author included anecdotes to clarify on the character of certain individuals. I also found it intriguing to read about Jack’s imaginative thoughts as it draws similarities between his young self and many other children and their imaginations.

I found it interesting that Wolff brought in symbols even when dealing with a real life. It seemed almost as if he was writing his own life, as white paint mirrored the cover that Dwight wore, or how a dead beaver signaled a change in Jack. I found it admirable that Wolff was able to reflect upon his life with poetic observations. I can appreciate anyone willing to tell their story and found the memoir to draw me in more when I reminded myself that these events actually took place. In reflection, I neither harbored great liking or disliking for the novel.

Symbol-Dying Salmon

“They had come all the way from the ocean to spawn here, Dwight said, and then they would die. They were already dying. The change from salt to fresh water had turned their flesh rotten. Long strips of it hung off of their bodies, waving in the current” (Wolff 75).

The image of the dying salmon serves as a parallel to Jack and his mother. Just as the salmon make their long journey, Jack and his mother must make their voyage as well. The salmon must make a harsh journey to get to their final destination, just as the pair reach their final home when travelling for so long a time. The family must change their setting to create a new family, no matter the cost. As Jack states that the salmon were “already dying,” the symbol foreshadows the fate that awaits the two. As Dwight explains the condition of the salmon, it is as if he is telling them of the life that awaits them. The salmon reject their new home by being eaten away by the water. Jack and Rosemary must endure the instability and hostility of their new environment, which will soon eat away at them. Rosemary feels compelled to marry Dwight as the salmon instinctually swim upstream to spawn. Rosemary and Jack will begin their slow, figurative death once they join Dwight in his inhospitable and unfamiliar home. Though one may see the end results of the salmon and the mother and son to be different, their goals draw parallels. The salmon beat themselves bloody to form new life. While Rosemary and Jack endure a slow decay in their new environment, Jack too learns to create a new life for himself. The harsh conditions the salmon endure are similar to Jack’s situation as the obstacles only inspire Jack to form a new life later in the novel.

Theme- Escapism Through Imagination

Throughout the novel, Wolff employs the theme of escapism through the means of imagination. As Jack faces many troubles in his personal life, and is unable to escape them physically, he resorts to inventing new situations for himself in his mind.

From an early stage in his development, Jack is disappointed by important figures in his life, which cause him to imagine something better for himself. Because his father is nonexistent in his life, Jack “sometimes, seeing a man in a suit come toward [him] from a distance that blurred his features, [he] would prepare [himself] to recognize [his] father and to be recognized by him” (Wolff 12). Wolff includes these examples to show that his imagining of substitutes for his father is compensation for his absence.

Jack extends his imagination of strangers in terms of companionship as well. He forms an admiration for a “Mousketeer” on television, Annette, and writes her letters. Once he does not receive letters in return, he states, “I kept writing Annett and began to imagine a terrible accident in front of her house that would almost but not quite kill me, leaving me dependent on her care and sympathy, which in time would turn to admiration, love…”(44). Because Jack has been deprived of affection in his life, he searches for it via imagination. Though one might be taken aback by Jack’s thoughts on harm being placed on him, Wolff makes his story credible by relaying dramatic and uninhibited thoughts children have.

Jack also uses his imagination when an opportunity presents itself. He imagines going on a road trip to Mexico with his stepbrother and “having adventures along the way and helping people out of situations too thought for them to handle by themselves” (119). Though the chance of this happening is unlikely, Jack quickly makes assumptions and imagines himself having adventures away from his troubles. Wolff includes these instances to reveal the childlike nature of Jack and his need to break free from the difficulties he faced.

Character

Tobias Wolff begins his story by stating, “I didn’t come to Utah to be the same boy I’d been before. I had my own dreams of transformation” (Wolff 8). Here, Wolff introduces himself as the main character, Jack, and begins to tell of his childhood ambition to transform not just himself, but the world around him.

A driving force that contributes Jack’s need for transformation is his feelings of guilt. From a young age, Jack is faced with guilt as he attends Catholic school. When discussing an early figure in his life, Sister James, he laments, “To her I was just another boy doing some dumb boyish thing. But I began to feel that she knew all about me, and that a good part of her life was now given over to considering how bad I was” (12). Although Sister James is unlikely to have a personal vendetta against Jack, his child-like point of view shows that he is paranoid by his guilty conscience. Though Jack tries to face his troubles, he explains, “Trying to get a particular sin out of it was like fishing a swamp, where you feel the tug of something that at first seems promising and then resistant and finally hopeless as you realize that you’ve snagged the bottom, that you have the whole planet on the other end of your line” (17). Wolff includes a tone of hopelessness as he feels that as he tries to take hold of his sin, he feel more weighed down by his guilt.

This feeling of guilt continues to follow Jack, even as he moves into a new family. While Jack tells of his family troubles, he explains, “Dwight thought most of these troubles were my fault. And a lot of them were. I screwed up constantly, even when I meant to do well” (112). Wolff again employs a negative and guilty tone as Jack attempts to transform himself and “do well,” while he is being accused of causing trouble and feeling guilty himself. Jack’s harsh stepfather, Dwight, causes Jack a large amount of guilt, which leads to Jack’s final transformation away from his feelings of incompetency. Wolff relates, “I defined myself by opposition to [Dwight]. In the past I had been ready, even when innocent, to believe any evil thing of myself. Now that I had grounds for guilt I could no longer feel it” (134). What it takes for Jack to overcome his guilt is a change in his point of view. Once he realizes that he was innocent before, and once he has been pushed so far, Jack changes his submissive, guilty qualities, and grows through his embrace of rebellion.

Rhetorical Strategies

· Anadiplosis:

“I had my own dreams of transformation, Western dreams, dreams of freedom and dominion and taciturn self-sufficiency” (Wolff 8).

· Anecdote:

Because this is a memoir, it is not unusual that Wolff employs anecdotes in telling his story. These anecdotes differ from the normal writing style as they tend to break off from the story line. They serve to either give an example of a characteristic, or to give insight into Jack’s inner thoughts.

· Figurative Language/ Simile

“Trying to get a particular sin out of it was like fishing a swamp” (Wolff 17).

“I felt as if I had snatched him from a pack of wolves” (Wolff 121).

· Imagery

“He dressed like no one I’d ever met before—two-tone shoes, hand painted tie, monogrammed blazer with a monogrammed handkerchief in the breast pocket” (Wolff 63).

“The change from salt to fresh water had turned their flesh rotten. Long strips of it hung off their bodies, waving in the current” (Wolff 75).

· Colloquialism

“To make sure that I wouldn’t just play some grab-ass at the meetings…Dwight signed up as assistant Scoutmaster” (Wolff 101).

Wolff chooses to write his narrative in a way that includes a small amount of rhetorical strategies. What Wolff primarily includes is an abundance of anecdotes to give further support to his descriptions of the characters. By refraining from a flowery style, Wolff makes his memoir less like a poetic story and more of a terse retelling of his life. His purpose of his more simplistic writing is to give a sense of realism and honesty to the novel. By using colloquialism and imagery, the reader feels as if his anecdotes are real events and that the situation is actually happening. Wolff uses more complex language when he begins to show a deeper emotion about something. He begins his story by including anadiplosis, which serves to reveal his young hopes of moving somewhere new. When employing figurative language, Wolff discusses more poignant issues such as his battle with sin or the feeling of holding his child for the first time.