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Powder By Tobias Wolff Analysis

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The short story “Powder” by Tobias Wolff is about a boy and his father who went on a skiing trip right before Christmas. The boy must return to his mother before Christmas Eve dinner, or his mother would be furious. Yet, when a snowstorm strikes and the roads are closed, his father breaks the rules to get this boy home on time. In this story there is a lot of tension between the father and the mother and son yet some of the tension does get resolved. This story is about understanding that not being the same people your parents are is okay because you are special in your own way.

Firstly, the author drops many subtle hints on different parts of the characters lives, but never openly says what that part is. For example, there are many hints that the parents of the young boy narrating the story are getting divorced. His father is constantly saying how the boy’s mothers will never forgive …show more content…

The reader may also infer that the mother she may think the father is a bad influence on her son. I think this because of how different the father and son act. The father is a rule-breaker and does not plan ahead well while the son does not like to break rules and always plans ahead. Although not much information is told about the mother, you can predict that she would have been very angry if her son had been brought home any later than Christmas eve. You can predict this because when the father wasn’t allowed to drive through the snow he stated, “Your mother will never forgive me for this,” (Wolff 34). This shows that the mother is strict and also that the father has not been trustworthy in the past. The mother and father also do not seem to have a very good relationship and it seems as if the mother is very controlling of her son. From this evidence the reader can infer that the mother is more like her son than she is the boys

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