The Short Story 'Nightingale' By Tobias Wolff

In the short story “Nightingale” Tobias Wolff creates an alternate reality to emphasize men’s confusion in the world and what they have to sacrifice to become what society believes is the perfect man. As Dr. Booth drives to try and find the academy he remembers “as a boy, he himself [wants] nothing more than a chance to dream” (1349). This dreaming stops the moment he attends the academy. He remembers the academy and how the clock’s “hands frozen” and the judgment he faced as he was made to become one of the world’s robotic soldiers (1347).Dr. Booth loses his internal life and imagination the second he chooses to take the path that society has chosen for the men of the world. He gives in to the pressure of what a man is supposed to be and adheres

to gender roles. When he drives back to the academy for the second time it is gone and he finds a “military button” from long ago and places it in his pocket and “[starts] down the hill” (1350). He realizes that it was himself who attended the academy where he had been shaped into a man that would be accepted by society. When he puts the button into his pocket and heads downhill it symbolizes him deciding to become the man society wants but his life will never be full because he is not his true self. Wolff jumbles memories and reality to highlight the pressure put on men by society to fit into a specific role in order to be accepted