In the midst of the 1950s and 60s in post-war American, it is clearly presented in Tobias Wolff’s memoir, ‘This Boy’s Life, the difficulty in which characters had in finding their true self. The many expectations set by a patriarchal society caused characters to assume a pose of what society expected of them. This obedience to culture pushed undesirable role models towards Wolff, causing his concept of masculinity to be altered and his self confidence in himself to be crushed. In response, Wolff constantly changed his idea of himself to what he desired to be however, his influences never allowed him to truly become it.
American society pushed many expectations onto people to follow norms. Characters throughout the text such as Rosemary, Dwight and Toby all had pressures placed on them to live up to expectations set by the people around them. Rosemary was always pushed by other characters. Wolff Presents
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Throughout the text Wolff constantly ‘assumed a new pose’. He would always alter his thoughts on himself. He had ‘dreams of transformations’ he didn’t want to ‘the same boy he’d been before’. Although Wolff wanted all this to become of him, he was constantly prevented from this due to his rough surroundings. His friend Taylor and Silver were a bad influence on Wolff. They prevented Toby from being the perfect kid he desired to be. Wolff depicts this in the throwing of the eggs towards the ‘Thunderbird’. This immature act shows how Wolff does not truly ‘transform’ and become the person he wants to be. He is contently held back from undesirable influences. However, it is not just in harsh environments that Wolff struggles to find identity. Even though in the safe environment of ‘Hill’, Wolff still finds in difficult to fit in. Even though he has the ‘Princeton haircut’, everybody knows each other yet Wolff feels lost. This demonstrates that Wolff struggles to find identity in any