Plagiarism: An Act that Brings both Acceptance and Exclusion
Two lines in “When In Disgrace With Fortune” of Tobias Wolff’s Old School illustrate how acceptance and belonging can be stripped of a person the moment he commits a dishonorable act. The protagonist in Old School plagiarizes a girl’s story and thus dishonorably leaves his elite boarding school. His status in school varies greatly as he first receives the prize and is later asked to leave, in addition to losing his scholarship to Columbia. Once chosen by Hemingway for the prize, the narrator instantly feels a sense of belonging when his professor states, “A marvelous story! Pure magic. No- no- not magic. Alchemy. The dross of self- consciousness transformed into the gold of self knowledge...But I had to tell you, for my own sake if not …show more content…
Once the narrator has been accused of plagiarism, however, he is immediately stripped of the distinguished honor he had previously received. The headmaster denies his existence at the school when he says, “If after four years with us you could do this... then you have understood nothing of what we are. You have never really entered the school. So be it. As far as this school is concerned, you were never here”(145). The words Mr. Ramsey conveys to the narrator in the first line makes him feel accepted by his elite private school; significant to him since he had always felt like an outsider due to his lower socioeconomic class and Jewish heritage. Only a few days later, banished from this privileged community and his offer from Columbia rescinded, the weight of the narrator’s actions really hit him. He lost everything because the school had provided him with a sense of self-worth. By plagiarizing, the narrator directly betrayed the school’s core values and motto, and although kicking him out denied him of achieving his
Two lines in “When In Disgrace With Fortune” of Tobias Wolff’s Old School illustrate how acceptance and belonging can be stripped of a person the moment he commits a dishonorable act. The protagonist in Old School plagiarizes a girl’s story and thus dishonorably leaves his elite boarding school. His status in school varies greatly as he first receives the prize and is later asked to leave, in addition to losing his scholarship to Columbia. Once chosen by Hemingway for the prize, the narrator instantly feels a sense of belonging when his professor states, “A marvelous story! Pure magic. No- no- not magic. Alchemy. The dross of self- consciousness transformed into the gold of self knowledge...But I had to tell you, for my own sake if not …show more content…
Once the narrator has been accused of plagiarism, however, he is immediately stripped of the distinguished honor he had previously received. The headmaster denies his existence at the school when he says, “If after four years with us you could do this... then you have understood nothing of what we are. You have never really entered the school. So be it. As far as this school is concerned, you were never here”(145). The words Mr. Ramsey conveys to the narrator in the first line makes him feel accepted by his elite private school; significant to him since he had always felt like an outsider due to his lower socioeconomic class and Jewish heritage. Only a few days later, banished from this privileged community and his offer from Columbia rescinded, the weight of the narrator’s actions really hit him. He lost everything because the school had provided him with a sense of self-worth. By plagiarizing, the narrator directly betrayed the school’s core values and motto, and although kicking him out denied him of achieving his