This Boy's Life Tobias Wolff Analysis

Control is the fight to grasp what is just out of reach. Throughout the novel This Boy’s Life, written by Tobias Wolff, the protagonist struggles and fails to achieve control of his life. Jack’s lack of control, and subsequent fall out to live in an artificial reality, is articulately shown through the scene in the novel where he dreams of murdering his stepfather, Dwight, in order to save his mother, Rosemary, from ongoing abuse (Wolff, 133). Here, the reader is given a glimpse into Jack’s twisted mind and his irrational logic. In order to win his mother’s love and attention, which he desperately craves, he desires to be a hero and to rescue her. In his mind, Jack equates murdering Dwight with justice and sees no wrong in the act of murder.

Jack feels guilty that he is forced to stand by and watch as his mother is relentlessly battered and neglected, so he channels his frustrations into his imagination. Jack’s fantasies are the only place where he can be powerful and brave, so he ignores reality and diverts his attention to his unattainable dreams.
This passage stands out from others in the novel because it possess a dramatic juxtaposition; within a few sentences Wolff transitions from describing a callous murder to explaining how, regardless of what others think of him, Jack does not view himself as a flawed person. Jack struggles to secure a clear view of his identity, as he is always being put in situations where he has no control. Jack’s continuing struggles create two conflicting images in his mind: the person he is and the person he desires to be. Wolff uses Jack’s former self’s fixation on unattainable fantasies to promote the overall theme of the novel: that delusions are used to endure powerless situations. Jack is a pathological liar; he views himself as an essentially noble person who would help others in their time of need when in reality he is the exact opposite. His self-delusion stems from his lack of control in life, so he desperately seeks the comfort of lying to others and himself. The dialectic between Jack’s delusions and reality assists the overall theme of the book, portraying Jack as being constantly in a losing battle with his sanity, desperately seeking stability and justice in the face of his pitiful life. With this Wolff shows the reader that, when one is in such a traumatic situation that cannot be resolved, the trauma inadvertently penetrates one’s own mental thought processes, blurring the lines between delusions and reality.
In the passage, Wolff uses Jack’s fantasy of killing Dwight to symbolize Jack’s lack of control in connection to the overall theme of delusion.

Dwight has power over Jack’s life, abusing him and Rosemary, and Jack can do nothing to protect himself or his mother. This connects back to the theme of delusion as Jack desperately attempts to maintain come control in his disastrous life. Instead of dealing with his feelings of powerlessness, he uses his imagination to escape his life, which is too unbearable for him to handle. Wolff uses his former self’s imagination to show the reader the main idea behind his novel, to show that though delusions may help escape powerless situations, in the end they do more harm than good. The lies that Jack constantly spouts are significant to the novel, as Jack’s character is formed by the choices he makes, and through his delusions his concept of good and bad falls short, leaving him susceptible to making unfortunate choices. Wolff uses these to teach the reader that delusions have only a short-term positive effect, and that using delusions to escape reality is a solution to ones problems. Jack attempts to fake being a “perfect” person who is loved and appreciated, and yet, he cannot avoid reality. Wolff reinforces the theme of delusions used to escape reality by portraying Jack’s character as weak and flawed, his life a crumbling cry for help. Wolff uses the theme of delusion to show his readers that escaping life in order to seek control

isn’t a plausible solution to problems, nor will it end one’s suffering.