Summary Of This Boy's Life By Tobias Wolff

Tobias Wolff’s novella This Boy’s Life takes place during the summer of 1955. Ten-year-old Toby and his mother, Rosemary, are escaping an abusive life from her boyfriend, Roy in Florida and traveling by car to Utah where they believe their last chance of hope and fortune is the mining of uranium ore. They are short on money, a theme that continually comes up throughout the book, but full of hope and love for each other. Toby shares a special connection with his mother Rosemary. He once had a father and an older brother, who live in Connecticut, but abandoned Toby as a child. When Toby and his mother arrived in Moab, Utah they find out they were too late. People had already come for the mining of the uranium ore and the city is a slum town with the lack of employment and jobs. This drives Toby and his mother to the city of Salt Lake where she believed she can find a job and they could settle down. Toby vows to his mother that he will change and be a better kid than he was in Florida and asked to change his name to Jack, which is what he is

The first description is Jack's feelings of guilt and unworthiness, and his desire to change himself into the boy he fantasizes about being. More than anything, Jack wants to be stable and privileged. Jack just wants to ultimately make his mother happy. He makes no attempt to actually come to reality with his fantasies. He can only keep dreaming and changing himself into the charming, charismatic kid he fantasises himself as. Even though these unstable and unreal fantasies he creates within himself, Jack feels constant comfort from them. Jack feelings of being unworthy and his guilt play as a motivator for his perception of himself as a hero. Jack takes on the responsibilities his father never provided, and wants to provide for his mother and get them out of their unhappy and poverty induced