Tobias Wolff

“Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff is about a book critic named Anders who is shot in the head during a bank robbery. During the time span of the bullet piercing through his skull, he experiences memories he does not remember. Anders is presented to be an arrogant and unsympathetic character at the beginning of the story. His interaction with the woman in front of him shows how he is pessimistic about people and does not care about other’s feelings. Consequently, he becomes nonchalant during…

“No one would have taken them for brothers.” Truth be told, this is the main thought that can be drawn throughout the whole short story, “The Rich Brother” by Tobias Wolff. From the very beginning of the story this is said to the reader, it’s clear that these two brother Pete and Donald are polar opposites of one another. The reader will discover from this that Pete and Donald no matter what time it was in their life, they had had problems with one each other. This would infer that Pete and…

This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff Set in the post-World-War Two era, in the mid 1950s, the central character Toby and his mother leave Sarasota, Florida for Utah with the eager and ambitious plans to become economically prosperous, on uranium. Toby changes his Christian name to Jack, after Jack London as he feels it will charge him with “strength and competence,” and these acts are done also out of spite and betrayal to his father, as they were abandoned. He feels unworthy of his life and feels too…

Tobias Wolff's memoir 'This Boy's Life' follows the journey of Jack Wolff and his mother Rosemary through post-war America as they try to make a life for themselves. The duo attempt to change their luck by escaping the violence of the men in their lives, but find themselves powerless over such a life change. Jack's story explores how the men around him, such as Dwight, Roy and Mr Mitchell are inextricably linked to violence and power. Throughout the piece, Jack is portrayed as being a young boy…

Tobias Wolff is the author of This Boy’s Life. Tobias, or Toby for short, writes this memoir about his own life when he was a young boy. Toby lived a difficult childhood and caused a lot of trouble because of it. He didn’t grow up with a father figure, and he was constantly moving around because his mother couldn’t stay put. Even though his childhood living situation was terrible, it doesn’t exonerate the juvenile acts he performed in his judgement. Based on what Toby went through when he…

time. Many have had fathers that have stayed with them, while others may have left their families for financial or other reasons. There are good fathers, but sadly there are bad fathers. Two stories we read in class involve fathers, “Powder” by Tobias Wolff and Amy Hempel’s “Today Will Be a Quiet Day”, and although they are about father figures in the lives of children, they both take very different approaches to this topic. Both stories share many similarities. First off, the main similarity…

“The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell and “Hunters in the Snow” by Tobias Wolff are completely different short stories, but their characters and imagery are very similar. From a cold, winter forest to a humid, sticky forest, the stories’ settings are as polar opposite as possible. These stories may have very different settings, but they have startling comparisons between the protagonists, the antagonists, and the plots. In the story “The Most Dangerous Game,” there are two main…

Near the climax of the story, Frank and Graham are out having dinner together. Graham has already put up with several embarrassing instances and Frank is in denial that his son is frustrated, annoyed, or angry with him. On page 11, we hear Frank’s interior monologue, “Graham disagrees with me when I try to send back a second bottle of wine, apparently under the impression that one ought to accept spoiled goods in order not to hurt anybody’s feelings. This strikes me as maudlin but I let it go…

The values of a patriarchal society are shown to be stifling and oppressive for both women and children. Discuss. Tobias Wolff’s 1989 coming-of-age memoir, This Boy’s Life, subtly explores how a patriarchal society is not only stifling and oppressive for women and children, but also for men. Wolff does not directly comment on the patriarchal values of the 1950’s; nor does he try to condemn them, instead the reader is exposed to the suggestion that had these ideals not been so firmly ingrained…

there are challenges that everyone faces when they are in a relationship. It is only natural for human beings to question each other and to find answers for all of the questions that haunt an individual. In the short stories “The Rich Brother” by Tobias Wolff and “Sonny’s Bue’s” by James Baldwin, this challenge between the relationship between two different brothers are presented. In both stories, the characters consist of the “good brother”, the one who always does what they are supposed to do;…