Summary Of This Boy's Life By Tobias Wolff

In This Boy’s Life the author Tobias Wolff presents his youth and the struggles that he had to develop from. In a lot of instances in the memoir Tobias is being dragged around from city it city by his mother in hopes of a better future. In one of the last towns Tobias was moved to, he is brought into a both mentally and physically abusive family. In the transition to Chinook Tobias notices the change of the fish as they leave the salt water. Symbolically showing how Tobias feels about the transition to Chinook. “They were already dying. The change from salt to fresh water had turned their flesh rotten. Long strips of it hung off their bodies, waving in the current”(75). This quotation intrigued me by the use of the fish as a symbolic meaning. It

Thus explaining the reaction Tobias had when he finally connected that Dwight would be his new step-father. Furthermore, the quotation also related to the meaning of the novel as a whole by showing that his imagination created a only one path in his life. While he could have changed his future for the better. For example, by becoming more focused on his school life or at home environment to make it better. When Tobias imagined the fish’s flesh falling off he saw himself and his mother, already creating the bad fortune that would come. However, if Tobias told his mother about Dwight he could have changed his life. Instead Tobias tried to make his home and school environment better by creating a better more rich life by using his imagination. Overall, in the memoir the use of imagination and fantasy is used in Tobias’s life. So much that in every instance that Tobias used his power of his mind he tricked himself into believing it's true. Tobias used imagination as a weapon, to protect himself from the reality of life. Sadley, the world around Tobias continued to be the hard truth, he was poor, and not a football star or a 4.0