Summary Of This Boys Life By Tobias Wolff

Tobias Wolff’s memoir This Boys Life, charts the young boys trials and adulations, growing up in the turbulent post war 1950s america with a warm hearted but ineffectual mother and a long string of violent and dangerous partners. Poverty and violence in his life rob Toby of his childhood innocence forcing him to hide in his own imagination to shield himself from harm. At the tender age of ten Toby witnesses a major “crash”. Standing “at the cliffs edge” Toby does not realise how much of an ominous sign this is for his life. Chased by abusive and power hungry men who “panic” when when they are disobeyed while simultaneously wishing to reinvent himself Toby is unable to retain the rigid style of life that protects childhood innocence.

While Toby is shown to the reader as an outcast and unfriendly person, the sombre tone of the text and the events described convey the idea that Toby’s personality and

This is very different to Toby’s own experience in which he has to flee his home most likely never to return again. This loss of home plays a big role in the loss of childhood that plagues Toby across the continent. After previously being rejected by his biological father and a large change in location from Connecticut to Florida Toby is already confused and finds it hard to fit in, especially when a girl arrives in his class also called “Toby.” Mocked and laughed at Toby begins to feel increasingly alienated from kids his age and struggles to make lasting friends, a trait he retains all throughout the novel. When he leaves again running away from Roy on the way to Utah Toby is again subjected to a loss of home and a massive change in location. In the end the fruitless journey to change their “fortunes” ultimately costs Toby one of the most important things a young child has, the sense of home and family that comes from rigidity in his