A Boy of Deception

Tobias Wolff is a boy of deception. Through his entire boyhood he has been deceiving himself and others through tales and creations of a person he is not.

Toby’s scheme to get into The Hill School is the climax of his creation of a falsified reality. While he writes his teacher’s recommendations, his personal essay, and fills out a fake transcript, Toby is substantiating the life he has always wished for. He creates such a strong identity for himself, it is my believe that he begins to believe this as his truth. He is calculated about the lies he tells about his academic and extra curricular achievements. He does not credit himself with achievements that he believes are not possible. Instead he creates a an identity for himself that he believes to be possible if he had better luck in his life. This element makes me feel that Toby is a lazy visionary. While he has a great vision for what his life could be, he does not apply himself to the hard work it would take to get him that lifestyle. Mostly, I feel that Toby is terribly insecure and envious of the upper class. I wonder at what point in Toby’s life he decided that he was going to take hold of his life and accept who he was. This surely occurred after his “wild-man” days and somewhere in the trenches of Vietnam.

“Then I went into the army. I did so with a sense of relief and homecoming. It was good to find myself back in the clear life of uniforms and ranks and weapons. It seemed to me when I got there that this was where I had been going all along, and where I might still redeem myself. All I needed was a war”

The conclusion of This Boy’s Life is brief and vague. To me, Toby’s conclusion was reminiscent of the movie “Stand By Me”. Similar to This Boy’s Life, “Stand By Me” ends with little fanfare. The story simply ends and the boys’ later years are summarized through text. While this type of conclusion may leave the reader disappointed, I feel it is appropriate as this was only a autobiography f Toby’s childhood. Toby tells of time at Hill and gives the reader little detail about what occurred after his dismissal.

A passage that really struck me towards the end of the book was when Toby’s mother was strangled by Dwight. Toby explains how he listen to the struggle in the hallway and credited the strange noises to cats. Then after Dwight is caught by police and standing in cuffs, Toby writes this,

“ Bastard”, I said, but I said it almost gently, conscious of the falseness of my position. I had known someone was in trouble and I had done nothing”.

This phrase “ I had know someone was in trouble and I had done nothing”, really strikes me, as I feel it is symbolic of Toby’s inner struggles. He always knew he was doing the wrong thing and was immoral person, but instead of turing his bad behavior around he did nothing. He simply kept creating a life full of lies.