Tobias Wolff Essay Research Paper Tobias Wolff

Tobias Wolff Essay, Research Paper Tobias Wolff, a boy of a troubled childhood, and a very tough father. Tobias Wolff had no intentions of being a writer from the start; it just seemed to of popped into his life. The Amazing part about this writer is that he was not supported by anyone but himself. His father was against everything that he did, and his brother, Geoffrey, also a writer would always take his fathers side, leaving Tobias on a side of his own. “I wasn’t fair, I always took my father’s side.” Said Geoffrey (Wolff, G; Duke of 144) Geoffrey was known as the ‘Good Brother’ as his father would say. This was wrong for a father to do, parents can’t play favorites, because it leads to one child feeling left out, or rebelling against it like Tobias Wolff

did. I feel that the reason for the father favoritism towards Geoffrey Wolff was because Tobias was the younger brother, and younger brothers may be known to be more rebellious. Although, there was nothing said about how Tobias acted in his childhood, he might have been a rebellious child, which may of turned his father towards Geoffrey. Tobias decided to enlist himself into the army once he couldn’t deal with his father anymore. No, he was not drafted into the army; he chose to enlist himself into the army acting on his own free will. Many say that Tobias did this to escape his troubled childhood and mainly his father. Shortly after Tobias enlisted himself into the army, he was called to battle in the Vietnam War where he experienced many different styles of life. Shortly

after the war ended Tobias wrote a novel, most people say it was his best work, titled In Pharoh’s Army: memories of the lost war. The reason this came to be such an amazing work was it contained his wartime experiences from the Vietnam War. Once Tobias completed In Pharoh’s Army, he said, “This is … my last memoir.” It is not understood why Wolff said this it seems as if he were to disappear from the world of writing. Although I could not get a hold of this book, from what I read about it, it was a very vivid memoir which unlike other wartime stories, contained information and experiences from a writer who actually was there, in Vietnam, who experienced the hard times of war. In the short story Powder by Tobias Wolff, there is a boy and his father, and they are sort of

stranded out in the wilderness due to a snow storm, and the father keeps asking his kid questions like we’re gonna make it home, right? And other questions to give the kid confidence in his father. The kid kept responding with ‘umm yeah,’ and saying yes in an unsure way, like he didn’t have confidence in his father bringing him home safely. This ties in with the autobiography This Boys Life in which Tobias Wolff talks about his life, his father and how he began to lose faith in his father during his childhood years. I think that the short story Powder was actually about him and his father’s relationship, and how Tobias lost faith in his father like it said in This Boys Life. Tobias Wolff’s father was also very forceful, in having things done his way, and him trying to

manipulate Tobias into doing things that he wanted. His father said to him: “Your brother tells me you’re thinking of Choate, Personally, I think you’d be happier at Deerfield.” Tobias replied: “Well I just applied, Maybe I won’t get in.” (Wolff, T; Boys life 210) This shows how the father, not only was he forceful, but he made his son Tobias scared of him, in wanting to go to a different school that his father wants him to go to. The way that Tobias responded “Maybe I wont get in” gives me this impression, and also gives his father the impression that he really doesn’t want to go to Choate. Another thing I found interesting was the way that Tobias and his brother would respond to the father with “yes, sir,” and “no, sir.” (Wolff, T; Boys life 21) This