Tobias Wolff

In May of 2015, I was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. My life became a whirlwind of hospital visits, testing, and a constantly changing list of prescriptions. It took months of doctor visits and a wide range of diagnoses to finally be correctly diagnosed with P.O.T.S. The condition falls under the umbrella of dysautonomia and is characterized by a rise in heart rate exceeding thirty beats per minute when transferring from a sitting to standing position. The body’s…

Geoffrey Wolff took on the task of justifying the lies that created a barrier between family, friends, and the general public. His memories from his childhood are disturbing, jaw-dropping, and tangled with guilt. The memoir begins with Geoffrey Wolff learning of his father’s death in 1970. With this knowledge, Wolff revealed the enigma that was his father to himself, and the readers. The book overall is part of a memoir, autobiography, and even part biography for Arthur Samuel (Duke) Wolff,…

In This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff uses cars to highlight the irony of the American Dream, specifically the idea of reinvention. Cars are seen repeatedly throughout the text and are clearly used to further Wolff’s ironic views about the traditional idea of the American Dream. Cars have always been a symbol of escape and starting over, as it gives people behind the wheel the power to escape their old lives and old selves to start anew. However, in This Boy’s Life, we see that cars never give the…

In “Bullet in the Brain” (1995), Tobias Wolff summarizes a whole life of Anders. The main character whose named Anders is a book critic, and the cause of his death is because his sarcastic comments. At the beginning of the reading is about the story in the bank, two robbers shows up and use guns to threat everyone. However, the character Anders seems cannot realize he is in danger and keep making sarcastic comments to the robbers. Then, the robbers shot him. After the bullet into Anders…

“Hunters in the Snow’s” irreverent and cynical tone was developed by the elements that Tobias Wolff used in this story. These elements include symbolism, point of view, characterization, plot, and theme. The story is based around a hunting trip of three men: Tub, Kenny, and Frank. In the beginning the narrator describes a moment when Tub was about to get ran over by his “friends.” Tub gets in the truck and they head to the woods. They are hunting for deer, but eventually it begins a hunt for…

Tobias Wolff uses the literary element of metaphors in the memoir This Boy’s Life in order to genuinely illustrate how he depicted scenarios in his mind in which he can flee from his calamitous home-life in his childhood. Wolff, in his adolescence, faced many struggles regarding his own identity, and time and time again in the text, he does something that will in turn change his identity somewhat in either the form of his actions, the influences others have on him, or even his imagination.…

hand is to keep the reader interested. Commercial fiction is usually used by the reader to escape their reality. A short story such as The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell is an example of commercial fiction. While Hunters in the Snow by Tobias Wolff and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber by Ernest Hemingway’s are examples of literary fiction. The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell is an example of commercial fiction. This story although entertaining doesn’t have a set theme.…

Some works take the reader to faraway lands and fantasy worlds while others travel to times past. However, how many works take the reader on a trip through the human spirit? The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell and Hunters in the Snow by Tobias Wolff are two such works. Although The Most Dangerous Game and Hunters in the Snow greatly differ in locale and character social class, both works give insightful views on the darkness of human nature. The scenery in The Most Dangerous Game gives…

For many years, people have spoken of it when referring to near death experiences, but not everyone truly knows what this would feel like in practice. It’s left to talented writers, such as Tobias Wolff, who paint hypothetical, but no less vivid descriptions of such a phenomenon. In his story, titled “Bullet in the Brain,” the protagonist, Anders, has a run in with a bank robber, who winds up shooting him in the head. Through the shocking and…

deepen our understanding of life and real world problems. “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell is commercial fiction due to it not containing real world problems from that time or any set theme. However, in the “Hunters in the Snow” by Tobias Wolff leans more toward literary fiction, considering there are more symbolic values and morals. It has problems that even to this day some people are still responsible to deal with it. “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Ernest Hemingway…