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Tobias Wolff: The Stubbornness Of Man

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The Stubbornness of Man Born on June 19, 1945, Tobias Wolff has grown to become a famous American author. Wolff grew up in a divided household, where he and his mother lived on the West coast as for his father and brother who lived on the East coast. Wolff would go on to attend Stanford University, where now he currently a professor teaching English and creative writing. In Wolff’s writing, he likes to use cliches such as: Father and Son, Husband and Wife, Brother and Brother. Throughout Wolff’s story the protagonists must overcome a “moral dilemma, unable to reconcile what they know to be true with what they feel to be true”(Mason). The characters in the story usually have two opposing views and quarrel over who is right and who is wrong. …show more content…

Tobias Wolff’s “Say Yes” is set in the kitchen and uses the cliche of a fighting married couple. The protagonist is the husband; he and his wife are doing the dishes. His wife washes as he dried. The husband does the little things like this as “a way of showing how considerate he” is for his wife (1). The chore is going normal the two …show more content…

Similar to Wolff’s real life the parents are separated and the protagonist, the son, is living with his mother. The father “had to fight for the privilege” to see his son with his soon to be ex-wife (1). The father is allowed to take the boy skiing, as long as he has the boy home in time for dinner. The father and boy are enjoying themselves so much that the loose track of time. The two make one last run. As they are on their way home the road is closed. The father and boy drive back to a dinner they passed on the way. The father is blind to the fact that he is about to get divorced and believes getting his son home would mend the marriage. He says to the boy “I can’t let this happen,” and the next thing the two of them left the dinner and were on their way driving on the closed road (1). The road they are traveling on is had “no tracks ahead,” the father is driving blind (2). The road is a representation of the father’s marriage. The road is closed just as he and his wife are about to get a divorce. The road is unseeable and seems to be going nowhere just like what’s left of the father’s marriage. The father still proceeds forward on the road just as he proceeds to try and fix his broken marriage. The father refuses to believe his marriage cannot be fixed so he just looks past it and keeps moving forward, just as in the story he cannot see the road he is

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The two stories have a theme that talks about respect - respect for individuality in Reed’s story and respect for person’s unlikeable traits in Wolff’s. In Reed’s story, the lead character learn to respect and accept his love despite the fact that they have different hearts. Also, he learns to accept her even though he knows that she would never be satisfied. In Wolff’s story, he emphasizes the importance of giving respect during the time when he enumerates the memories that Anders did not remember. He uttered “Anders did not remember the pleasure of giving respect.”

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