Lit Essay This Boy’s Life By Joshua Anderson

‘This Boy’s Life’ was written in 1989 by Tobias Wolff in the form of a memoir, it mainly focuses on
the troubling teenage years of his life, and the search for his own identity. It was later taken by Sir
Michael Caton-Jones and adapted into the form of a film in 1993. The film dose present a version of
the story, this is true. However it fails to show the different ways and levels of how the characters
grow throughout the text. The memoir achieves this in many aspects of character growth/conflict
between “Dwight’s” relationship with his wife/step-son, and ‘Toby’s’ relationship with “Jack”.

In the text of this boy’s life the search for identity is a re-occurring idea throughout the novel. This
concept of search for identity can be broken down into a few sub categories which include:
masculinity, dominance, and innocence. All of these are shown in many places of the text where we
see the young Toby getting hurt, picked on and insulted by Dwight. This is evident in the scene
where toby is in the bathroom brushing his teeth, and Dwight comes in and attacks toby for leaving
the lid of the tooth paste. This moment in the text is also shown in the film, however it focuses more
on getting the shot right and Dwight’s fake anger at toby, rather than Toby’s reaction after the fight
and how Dwight feels threatened and therefor tries to cling on to dominance. This moment in the
novel ultimately creates more conflict between Dwight and toby and later helps Toby become a
better person in the future and not a mirror reflection of Dwight.

Toby in the text has not just conflict with his stepfather Dwight, but also has inner conflict with his
alter ego Jack Wolff. Wolff described his other self as being “fearless”, “optimistic” and “rebellious”
and nothing like Toby. Wolff considers himself to be a coin having two different and completely
separate sides to himself one being Toby as intellectual, respectable and the moral side of Wolff,
while Jack is the other side being “tough”,” cool”, but also a “screw-up”. The inner conflict in the
novel is really what takes the story to the next level, because you have what’s happening in the
moment from Jacks point of view, but later the reflection of the event from Toby’s. A scene where
we see him as jack living in the moment is where he shoplifts from a store. “I was a thief”, “for me
steeling was serious business”, and “I was master thief”. But later on in the text we here Toby
reflecting in this. “My idea was to steel enough to run away” and “I was ready to do anything to get
clear of Dwight”. This reflective voice is absent in the film and therefor the viewer is limited to living
only in the moment which really halts the process of Toby and Jack developing throughout the story
as one character and “hurts” the viewer’s understanding of the story.

By this we can clearly see it is evident that the film cannot show the key detailed moments properly
like it can in the form of the memoir. Having said that what the film dose is leaves the viewer high
and dry, still wanting, and with questions left unanswered. This ultimately only gives the viewer
fragments of information and not true insight into the story, and/or what may possibly have been
the characters true motives for doing something that character did. This lack of character
development really depreciates the value the story Wolff that has written, and holds truths from the
audience that are displayed in the memoir, but not featured in the lines of the film.