Boys Life: A Memoir, Does the story tell the truth - Essay Example

Tobias Wolff This Boy’s Life: A Memoir, Does the story tell the truth? This is a short autobiography of the author’s troubled adolescent years. It begins when in 1955 Toby (who later renames himself Jack) and his divorced mother are driving west to Utah from Florida. They are escaping from Jack’s abusive step father, they are also trying to strike it rich in Utah; they want to search for Uranium. However, this plan fails miserably, and they are forced to move to the West coast, where the mother looking for a job finds a few undesirable suitors. She afterwards marries Dwight, a controlling man who makes Toby and the mother miserable. The memoir deals a lot with Toby’s desperate teen years and desperate and often disparaging attempts to survive under Dwight’s sovereignty of fear. Young Jack is not a perfect teen he makes trouble everywhere he goes. He is always hanging around the bad crowd. He does not value school, and it is hard to think that now he is an accomplished writer. This Boy’s Life captures the adolescence of Tobias Wolf perfectly. It is a memoir that shows the dreams of the future, and how circumstances alter them. The relationship of Jack Wolff and Arthur Gayle is rather fascinating. They originally meet after getting into a fight, Jack notoriously calls Gayle a ‘sissy’. Soon they become the best of friends but interestingly Wolff is quick to downplay the relationship because of how ‘different’ Gayle was. Wolff even mentions that even one afternoon they kiss, but that is all, he never speaks of the subject again. Small details and instances like this provide perfect details on the crazy things that are done adolescent years. We just desire to experiment with all the things in the world so as to discover ourselves. Some of Jack’s self destructiveness can be attributed to his background. Raised by a single divorced mother, and her inability to occupy a father’s place, that is to take care of Jack’s early roguish signs. Rosemary- Jacks mother-is a victim of domestic violence and therefore, according to Jack, she has never brought herself to spank him. The few times that she tried Jack came out laughing. Even her voice she was unable to raise it convincingly. This laxity is what stimulates Jack to enter into more problems. His expulsion from school is a superb example. Truth is defined by many as a verifiable fact is as unpretentious as it sounds, but it is something that everyone yearns for (Williamson 2004). It is inconceivable, elusive and ambiguous to the human mind. Everyone has his own unique perceptions of the truth so with that, what is the fact? The truth is whatever one wants to believe. It is true because if one believes that something is true, it can therefore become true. Wolf judgment that ‘memory has its own story to tell’ is a true account and memory may represent what it thinks is facts. In “This Boy’s Life” the truth is in the heart of the memoir. The interpretation of the truth is Wolf’s own assessment of what happened and it may vary differently with the way others saw it. Wolff illustrates and tries as best as he can to convey the truth according to his recollection; that is his memory. The truth can however, be altered and skewed with just one single misrecollection. It is in this light that “memory has its own story to tell”. Therefore, Wolff’s assessment is a true representation of what happened and although we cannot confirm anything, it is ridiculous that a memoir might exist without honesty. In accumulation, the truth in Tobias case is defined by various complicated aspects. These aspects affects the way he looks at a situation, these aspects include, judgment values and opinions (Allen 2003). An example is Toby’s Winchester rifle. He loves his gun and describes it with a lot of passion and adoration. He describes it as a “beautifully, well balanced firearm with silky smooth action”. This is in contrast to Dwight who terms it as “blunderbuss” that often “shoots wilds” for a purebred hunting of a dog. Another example is Toby’s view of the dog champ; Toby views the dog as an ugly mutt as compared to his mom who sees it as “actually quite handsome”. With these two examples as indisputable evidence to unlike points of view, it elucidates the difficulty of determining what is true and what is not. Furthermore, there is the aspect of passing of time effects of Wolff perception of the truth. If Wolff was to rewrite this memoir it could be represented differently (Wolfgang 2003). These noticeable differences would appear because when reexamining the past, the truth will always be twisted and reconstructed whether intentionally or unintentionally. This alteration or contortion of the truth of the truth is natural over time because the perception in the past changes due to development in wisdom and increase in understanding and knowledge. Some have argued that Tobias Wolff has exaggerated his youth in his memoir. This may be true, because of his sudden and quite unnatural rise in intelligence and character. Age sometimes may change a person’s character, but not entirely (Wilson 1999). In his interview with Jack Livings, Tobias admits that everything he authored about Dwight is not entirely a real picture (Living 2003). With this in perspective, then it is right to assume that everything written by Tobias is his own representation, and not necessarily a true representation of what happened (Wilson 1999). We often feel an appeal and defiance when we read a memoir or a biography more often than not this defiance comes from an individual’s humanity, our natural and inborn tendency of seeing the real world. This is because the characters one is reading about are purported to be real and therefore, do actions that are in line with human nature. In detail, truth may not always be factual. It is however founded on a human understanding at its core (Aristotle n.d). Therefore, if truth exists outside our perceptions and emotions (as it is the case with Wolff) it must go beyond the usual; the sensory inform of the heart, soul and mind. Facts can be fabricated, hidden or twisted but the truth remains the truth. Facts are transient while the truth is eternal (Aristotle n.d). It is with this view that we can comfortably state that truth and recollection of memories exists outside dimensions of our environment and laws because otherwise it would be dependent on them to exist. Wolff understands this and that is why he says “Memory has its own story to tell” he knows that to pursue his memories he might not represent the facts as the way they were, but rather how he remembers them. It is also in his discretion to misrepresent the facts as facts are not always the truth (Carr 1998). For example his affair with Gayle is an example of a lie; misrepresented fact. He only sheds some facts but hides the truth, he seeks not to step in the direction he starts and give calculated facts. While the readers are trying to interpret these facts they might interpret wrongly and thus, distort the truth or misrepresent it (Carr 1998). Each individual will interpret each fact differently according his beliefs and customs. If we were following Tobias with a camera during his adolescent years we may notice different stories, circumstantial and emotional and interpret them differently. Truth cannot therefore, be dependent on facts so as to exist. Also, in his interview with Jack livings Tobias says that his memoir is his own representation of the truth. However, that is his representation of the facts. Others may have different representations of the same fact and thus it would be wrong to call it the truth. Truth exists outside and is confused with relativity. Tobias is talking of relativity not truth. Relativity is dependent on facts but the truth is not. Relativity is a representation, a perception of a person and never the truth. It would therefore, be right to assert that the Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life is a factual book but not necessarily a truthful one. No one in the world can recollect all the facts of his adolescent years but one can try to recollect some of the facts, but not all of them. Some memories get blunted by the years and we may remember what others said about an event as the real occurrence when actually it is not. Wolff is an accomplished writer, but his many publications are set up on fiction. Thus, he may deliberately or unknowingly add some false details so as to spice up stories. For example, the scene the mustard seed where Dwight commands and reprimands Jack for failing to remove all the mustard seeds from the jar is exaggerated, this Tobias admits in his interview with Living. This may be affected by the way he thinks in his novella ‘The barracks thief’ the action of the mustard seed is recapitulated although in a different scenario. Thus, it can be seen that the life of Tobias has significantly affected his writing and he tries to twist the truth in each conceivable way without necessarily changing the fact. In summary, I entirely have the same opinion with Wolffs appraisal that reminiscence tells its own story because the truth is founded on memory when recalling it from history. It is so basic for truth to be misconstrued in view of the fact that it is affected by such factors such as point in time, point of view, and so much more. To say that the real truth is what each person believes within ones self is legitimate. The truth that exists in this chronicle is rendered all the way through Tobys remembrance and discernment of his lifes recollections. Work cited Carr.D, (1998)Education, Knowledge, and Truth: Beyond the Postmodern Impasse .Routledge New York. Wolfgang K., (2003) conceptions of truth. Clarendon press: Boston Allen J., (2003) to tell the truth. SAGE: New York Wilson P., (1999) The power of truth. SAGE: Boston Living G., (2003) Interview with Tobias Wolff. Raeburn: Boston Wolff T., (1989) This boys life. Grove Press: New York Wolff T., (1992) The barracks thief. Grove Press: New York Williamson G., (2004) the truth and its difference from fact. Bookman publishers: New York Read More