Tobias Wolff Analysis
“My writing has been impelled by the desire to escape.” -Tobias Wolff
Both Toby and his mother find the idea of escaping desirable. Toby does this in both physical escaping to another location, but also on an emotional level. Tobias Wolff chose the name Jack as a new beginning for himself. This is a representation of him escaping his past and making himself anew. He escapes his past by using his imagination, through the act of driving, and taking on different roles.
Toby tries to pretend that his current situation is not actually real and uses his imagination as a form of escape. Toby writes imaginative letters to his pen pal Alice, where he lies about his life and describes his ideal world. “I also wrote long letters to my pen pal...I represented …show more content…
He forges recommendation letters from his teachers where he writes about what he believes is the stifled truth. “That was what I thought I was writing- the truth. It was truth known only to me, but I believed in it more than I believed in the facts arrayed against it. I believed in some sense not factually verifiable I was a straight-A student.” (213). He wants to believe that the person he is writing about is actually himself, but he is the only one who knows it. He and Dwight whitewashing the piano is a symbol of this. Similar to how he paints the piano keys and tries to make them look new again, he tries to cover up his personality by forging the recommendations. In actuality, he is only hiding the truth from others and ignoring the reality of his …show more content…
He doesn’t have clear distinctions between his dreams and the reality of his situations. By the end of the novel, he finally understands how to separate these two and he reflects on it. He explains how when we are young, inexperienced, and innocent we think that anything is possible and that the whole world is at our disposal (286). Toby believes that his dream of freedom is his right. He founds his desire to escape the past on this belief, which is what keeps him innocent. Maybe the reason he considers this book about his adolescence, is because this was the time that he believed anything was possible, including escaping his own
Both Toby and his mother find the idea of escaping desirable. Toby does this in both physical escaping to another location, but also on an emotional level. Tobias Wolff chose the name Jack as a new beginning for himself. This is a representation of him escaping his past and making himself anew. He escapes his past by using his imagination, through the act of driving, and taking on different roles.
Toby tries to pretend that his current situation is not actually real and uses his imagination as a form of escape. Toby writes imaginative letters to his pen pal Alice, where he lies about his life and describes his ideal world. “I also wrote long letters to my pen pal...I represented …show more content…
He forges recommendation letters from his teachers where he writes about what he believes is the stifled truth. “That was what I thought I was writing- the truth. It was truth known only to me, but I believed in it more than I believed in the facts arrayed against it. I believed in some sense not factually verifiable I was a straight-A student.” (213). He wants to believe that the person he is writing about is actually himself, but he is the only one who knows it. He and Dwight whitewashing the piano is a symbol of this. Similar to how he paints the piano keys and tries to make them look new again, he tries to cover up his personality by forging the recommendations. In actuality, he is only hiding the truth from others and ignoring the reality of his …show more content…
He doesn’t have clear distinctions between his dreams and the reality of his situations. By the end of the novel, he finally understands how to separate these two and he reflects on it. He explains how when we are young, inexperienced, and innocent we think that anything is possible and that the whole world is at our disposal (286). Toby believes that his dream of freedom is his right. He founds his desire to escape the past on this belief, which is what keeps him innocent. Maybe the reason he considers this book about his adolescence, is because this was the time that he believed anything was possible, including escaping his own