The Theme Of Old School By Tobias Wolff

Self absorption is a term that is well seen in everyday life and has been seen in many literary works. We see celebrities who only care about themselves and it is a theme that appears all the time. Our world is filled with this self absorption and this really needs to change but we all know that it won't. We have seen this theme from when life began and many literary works have been written with this as a major theme. One of these works is the novel Old School by tobias wolff. The book is set in an all boys high school where competition is everywhere and this doesn't help the self absorption. The main character in this novel is a young writer and he is very quick to judge others writing. He has many friends but he is quick to watch them fall if it means that he prevails. …show more content…
He says “I didn't really believe he would win. He seemed more professor than writer, with his…”(pg 10). Here we see that Our narrator down talks other writers (his competition) and says things like I didn't really believe he would win. The narrator thinks that he is better than all the other people he is competing against. The narrator is the very definition of self absorbed. Another time we see this theme is when the narrator says “If you won't meet with him, let somebody else”(pg 55). The narrator is talking to one of his friends who is nervous about meeting Robert Frost and instead of making him feel better and more confident he puts him down and asks if someone else (himself) and take the place. This is a very self absorbed act and these are just two of the many examples of self absorption in Old