ABSTRACT
Late in This Boy’s Life, fifteen year old Tobias Wolff stands in front of a full length mirror in one of Seattle’s most exclusive men’s clothing stores. He has just been admitted to an elite all-male boarding school and has been brought to the clothing store by a rich alumnus of that school who wants to buy for Toby all the “right clothing.” Throughout This Boy’s Life, Toby struggles to demonstrate his masculinity, be the stage cavalier, and act the tough and independent boy that American culture idealizes. In a sense, This Boy’s Life is not only a chronicle of the pressures that American boys feel as they attempt to live up to the American ideal of boyhood but also a chronicle of the damage that men can inflict on boys and, more specifically, that fathers can inflict on their sons.
