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Theme Of This Boy's Life By Tobias Wolff

895 Words4 Pages

Most all stories hold deeper meanings, messages from an author to an audience. This is especially true amongst non-fiction works and memoirs. In a memoir, the author must draw upon their own memories and experiences to portray this deeper message - or as the term is better known, their theme. In Tobias Wolff’s memoir, This Boy’s Life, the author recounts his early life, from his journey with his mother, Rosemary, to the long stay with his abusive stepfather, Dwight. The theme of this memoir, like many others, is about how all actions and choices in life have consequences. Jack (that is, the young Tobias Wolff), begins the journey of this story on the road. He and his mother arrive in Utah searching for fortune and new beginnings in the form …show more content…

For a period of time, Jack moves out of Dwight’s house and goes to stay with a schoolmate and friend, Chuck Bolger. Up to this point in the memoir, the author has not portrayed himself as, to put it bluntly, a good person. When Dwight calls him a thief, Jack tells the readers that while “Dwight’s reason for calling [him] a thief was trivial [. . . his] thefts were real” showing us that even from this point he had done and was unrepentant of many small offenses (Wolff 133). Still, his first major crime is a very serious one. He and Chuck steal some guns from Dwight and then go and sell them at a pawn shop. This is a crime that Jack chose to commit, and regardless of who the victim is or what they have done, it is still a crime. Stealing Dwight’s guns is certainly not the first time Jack does something illegal or wrong. From the very first chapter, Roy gives Jack a gun and the author remembers feeling an “ecstasy” as he aimed it at passerbies, reveling in his “power over them, and at their absurd and innocent belief that they were safe” (Wolff 25). He also commits other crimes with Chuck, such as stealing from the Welches. Wolff portrays Jack as unrepentant towards any and all of his misdeeds until the very end, and this leaves a heavy impact on his life. His guilt- and lack of guilt- lead to a failure in school and a failure in his early life. Because

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