Theme Of Bullet In The Brain

Tobias Wolff develops tone in a very interesting way in “Bullet in the Brain”. “Bullet in the Brain”, a short story following the overall gruesomeness of life through actions such as the standing in line and a bullet passing through a brain, both literally and figuratively. At the beginning the protagonist, or perhaps his own antagonist, Anders arrives at the bank and is standing in line. At this point the tone of the author coincides very closely to that of Anders and is very straightforward. Wolff leaves much of any tone contradicting with Anders out of the beginning so that the reader forms his own speculations about Anders. Wolff does not start to reveal his own tone towards the subject of becoming jaded until Anders is actually shot in

The story ends with Anders enjoying his last memory of his younger days out on a baseball field filled with wonder. The tone Wolff has is one of underlying understanding. This tone is developed through several literary devices.

It is very important in understanding what Wolff is trying to convey with “Bullet in the Brain” in order to understand why and what literary devices he used to achieve his tone. With many different themes and intertextuality in this story it is difficult to understand the main point. Wolff is trying to comment on the judgmental and jaded outlook many adults have about life. He takes a very unlikeable and judgmental character’s last moments and as he is dying Wolff slowly humanizes this character. Through this humanization of Anders, the reader is both able to sympathize with him and understand their own judgmental actions. The structure of bullet in the brain moves almost backward adding emphasis to Wolff’s subject. In the beginning of this short story no background information about Anders is given. Even the name “Anders” can either be a last or first name leaving a sense of mystery about him as a person. All that is given is Anders job and some of his

Wolff alludes to ‘The Killers” by Ernest Hemingway, Greek mythology, and Macbeth to name a few. Understanding and researching these allusions is imperative in understanding Wolff’s tone. When Wolff approached characterizing the bank robbers he alluded to “The Killers by Ernest Hemingway. “Did you hear that Anders said ‘bright boy’ right out of the killers” (Wolff 3). This statement is Anders response to being called “bright boy” by one of the bank robbers. If the tone was not immediately understood, through this extra text you could analyze the importance of this allusion in the context of “Bullet to the Brain”. Better understanding the intertextuality Wolff uses helps readers understand why he uses the tone that he does and what he wants the reader to gather. In this case the reference to “The Killers” the reader with further investigation learns of two hit men, dressed very similarly to the two bank robbers in Bullet in the Brain, who are sent to kill a man named Anderson. Not only are these two stories comparable but also in “The Killers” when the hit men say “bright boy” they are referring to a young man who has still not crossed over to manhood. In Bullet in the Brain when one of the robbers refers to Anders this way he nearly scoffs at the suggestion revealing the irony of this statement being posed at someone already in adulthood. This knowledge further reveals Wolff’s tone of