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Examples Of Escapism In This Boy's Life By Tobias Wolff

817 Words4 Pages

This Boy’s Life Each person at some point in their lives experiences a tough situation that is overwhelming and difficult to handle. To help deal with the problem, one develops a coping mechanism to help with the stress or helplessness accompanied by the issue affecting him/her. Likewise, in This Boy’s Life, a memoir written by Tobias Wolff portrays a young boy who copes with his abnormal lifestyle by essentially running away every time he confronts an issue that he cannot handle. Tobias Wolff, who refers to himself as Jack throughout the novel, develops the theme of escaping from his problems rather than facing them head on with the use of motifs, symbols, and anecdotes. Throughout This Boy’s Life, the motif of drinking and the abuse of alcohol are prevalent in all of the main characters, including the protagonist Jack. For example, during the last basketball game of the season, Jack’s friend, Chuck gives him a Hawaiian Punch laced with vodka. Jack then proceeds to walk along a branch until it snaps. He falls off the edge and rolls down the hillside landing hard on his back. He stayed in that positon for the rest of the night, ignoring the voices that were calling his name. In the morning, he thumbs a ride home and was asked about his whereabouts …show more content…

The first anecdote he uses is Jack’s plan to run away from his new life in Chinook with the money he collected and stole from his afterschool newspaper delivery job. The protagonist believed that "eighty dollars seemed a lot of money, more than enough for my purpose, which was to run away to Alaska” (Wolff 155). He wanted to use the money he acquired to run away from Dwight and from his troubles. The author includes this anecdote to stress how unhappy of a life Jack is living while in Chinook. He also describes the exact amount of cash to increase awareness of how desperate Jack is to get away from his new

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