Plagiarism In Tobias Wolff's Old School

Tobias Wolff’s novel Old School conveys the ideas of honor, identity, voice and competition through the experiences of a boy who attends a preparatory school in the 1960s. The unnamed narrator’s actions are caused by the visiting writers, who definitely influence the narrator more negatively. Although the purpose of the famous writers visiting the school is to influence the narrator at the prep school more positively by helping him build character and allowing him to pursue perseverance, in reality the pressure the writers add discourages the narrator from finding his own voice and adds even more competition to an already extremely competitive school. This results in the narrator experiencing problems of plagiarizing, the search for his voice

The narrator committed plagiarism in order to win the school literary contest and an audience with his personal hero, Ernest Hemingway. Although the narrator “never thought of “Summer Dance” as anyone’s story but” his and didn’t intend to plagiarize, the narrator still did not write in his true voice, rather he wrote in Susan Friedman’s voice (Wolff 142). By desperately wanting the chance to meet Hemingway, the narrator took the risk of ruining his whole future when he got rejected by Columbia and being expelled from the school. The school’s literacy contest and Hemingway caused the narrator to have “dishonored his class” (Wolff 143) by plagiarizing Susan’s story. Hemingway led the narrator into an unfortunate situation which led him to dishonor the “honor code” at his school. The narrator distanced his path of finding his own voice even more when he imitated Hemingway’s stories. Rather than expressing his own voice and identity into his stories, the narrator “typed out Hemingway’s stories” (Wolff 110) causing his search to find his voice much longer. It is clear that Hemingway’s contributions to the school’s literacy contest motivated the narrator erroneously by discouraging the narrator from finding his own

Although some aspects the famous writers contributed benefited the narrator. The tone Tobias Wolff uses to describe the writing contest is to initially improve the students’ writing skills by learning from the visiting authors. Before the contest, the narrator’s stories appeared to be dishonest and as they were “props in an act” (Wolff 110). The “props” characterized his dishonest background in his stories, making himself seem more like the other boys in his school. However Hemingway stepped in to teach the narrator that it was acceptable to have flaws in himself and his stories, in addition that he should be honest in his writing, therefore also influencing the narrator positively. Frost also explains to the students to be truthful in their writing and to have “dignity” in their work, hence, also teaching the students an important lesson to know in their future stories (Wolff 45). Although Hemingway and Frost both taught the narrator lessons about honesty and several other new writing skills, the pressure they’ve given him forced him to plagiarize, causing him a bigger crisis in his life. Stealing Susan Friedman’s story and calling it his own will be remembered forever. The visiting writers provoked the