A Class Blog for the English 9A Class At Berwick Academy
Monday, October 12, 2009
First Test
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Question : How do you feel about Kenneth? Kenneth is angering and annoying. He always thinks he is right and everyone else is wrong, like when he "smirked and offered you his pittty for being so ignorant and missled. He also likes argueing which embarasses Norma and annoys the rest of her family. All he does is argue and complain. How can you get along with someone like that? He also complains about everything. If something is not perfect, or his idea of perfect, then he complains about it. If I knew a person like this I would probibly hate them. He does say one thing that is right. On page 50 he says "I only tell you this because I love you, but you are very frightened people. This is true. Everyone is frightened. Whethere it is about the future, or a paper, or a parent, for some reason everyone is frightened. Although Kenneth is right about fear, that does not make him a good person. He ruins Norma's life. He makes her so miserable she starts smoking, but has to hide that from him because he thinks only weak people smoke. He drains the life out of her, by argueing and complaining. Kenneth thinks he is so smart, but he needs a reality check. The reason everyone hates him is because he tries to make them believe his view of the world. His intentions might be good but he ends up killing Norma. - Maddy Keefe
Kenneth is a terrible person. He makes Dwight look like an angel. He argues so much that he doesn't know how not to argue. He lays all of his cards out on the table and Skipper gets so agitated that he tells Kenneth to lay off. He replies: "'What are you afraid of, Skipper'"(150)? Dwight then says: "'Just who in the hell do you think you are'"(150?)? He is very arrogant and believes that whatever he says is worth hearing. The only way to shut him up is to turn the TV on. Then he goes into a trance.
Norma is also not in love with him. She A) just wants to get married and B) wanted to shut him up and make him stop bugging her about getting married. She did it for the sake of her sanity, not because of true love. She still loves Bobby Crow inside. The real difference between the two of them- Kenneth and Bobby is that Kenneth promises that he is "ambitious". Bobby stays true to himself and Norma and doesn't promise anything he doesn't have.
Norma becomes depressed and distraught about how Kenneth treats her. “But she was pale and angular, all her lazy lushness gone. Her green eyes blazed in the starkness of her face. She had taken up smoking-… [she would] go outside and puff greedily on a cigarette”(151-152). She pretended that she liked him and never complained about him, but through her body language and new habits, it was clear how she felt about Kenneth. It makes me sick to see how Kenneth treats Norma. This is an extreme statement, but it is almost like he treats her like property, not like his wife. -Lydia W
Kenneth is employed, making money, and has good ambitions; everything Dwight puts as high priorities in a man. Although he has these good qualities, he is the most obnoxious, argumentative, and idiotic character in the book. “Norma tried to change the subject but Kenneth could take any comment and find something in it to deplore. Argument was the only kind of sound he knew how to make” (150). It is hard to believe this person actually existed; it is so easy to believe that he is a fictional character, put there to unite the family against a common enemy. “Kenneth pulled up the next afternoon and by dinnertime we all hated him” (149). He prospers as the single target we all hate; the people within Wolff’s memoir, as well as we the readers. Although he is probably the most annoying character in this book, he is also a key component of the story. This group of characters is closer to being a family than ever before. They can all agree on the fact that they hate Kenneth, as the saying goes; the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This is the key to peace for their family; but if it will last, we have yet to find out.
"How do you feel about Kenneth?" Kenneth is probably the biggest loser in the entire story so far. He's a lot like Dwight, in that he's just a @$$ for the sake of it. What is his problem? WHAT IS EVERYONES PROBLEM IN THIS FAMILY? Norma's obviously not in love with him, but I think she married him just to please Dwight. Or maybe her crappy family led her to a crappy marriage. Set his annoying features aside, Kenneth's outward appearance is actually pretty cool. The way he wears a golf hat, the golves he fiddles with as he gets out of his car-he just has a air of control about him. He also tempts himself with a pipe to learn self control. I'm not going to lie, that's pretty cool and admirable. All in all, his negative traits and his positive traits kind of cancel each other out, making him an okay kind of person. Or rather, he's cool on the outside, and the world's biggest jerk on the inside.
Kenneth is Norma’s boyfriend and eventually fiancé and husband. At first I thought Kenneth was like Dwight, insecure about his weaknesses and mean. As I read on, I saw that Kenneth actually makes Dwight look like a normal person. Kenneth was never really liked by anyone in Toby’s family. Even Norma doesn’t really love Kenneth. “‘You are very frightened people. Very frightened’ ” (150). I agree with Kenneth on this passage and I think this proves why Norma puts up with Kenneth and pretends to love him. Norma is scared of being alone and unloved so she marries Kenneth to avoid that. Towards the end of the chapter, we see the old Norma slowly dying due to Kenneth. Norma not only ruins her chances of true love by being with Kenneth, but she also hurts Bobby Crow very badly (152.)
I don't like Kenneth. In the sotry all he does is fight with people. He fights, not argues. Arguing implies that he has a point to make. With fighting, you can fight for no purpose. He fights until the other person gives up and then he'll smugly smirk as if he's making fun of you for being so ignorant. He acts higher than everyone else and strengthens his will power by tempting himself to smoke. This proves his arrogance. By his disappearance in the chapter, for the first few hours he spends with the family they already hate him. He makes me hate Dwight less. If I were to meet this person in real life, I wouldn't like him anyway. If I ever met this man Kenneth, I would try to ignore him and get as many people to do the same, because it seems that attention is what those types of people thrive off of.
Kenneth is a loathsome human being. He is cruel and mocking. He is extremely insecure, therefore he puts others down. In doing this, he creates hurt in the other person and it makes him feel better about his sorry self. Directly after meeting him, the family comes to hate him. Norma is nowhere near loving him, she only marries him because he has a job, ambition and she has a guaranteed future with him. Kenneth treats Norma like property and she knows that he will never make her happy in the slightest way. Kenneth never stops or slows arguing with, and insulting people, even if they are trying to be courteous, and trying with all their might not to strangle him with their bare hands. "Arguing was the only sound he knew how to make" (150). Norma made the wrong decision in marrying Kenneth. She could have stayed with Bobby Crow, who obviously loved her and she him. If she had stayed with Bobby, maybe they wouldn't have been rich, but they both would have been happy together. -Hallie Coon
Question:How do you feel about Kenneth? Kenneth is misunderstood. He never learned how to interact with others, and now refuses to learn. He argues because it is the only way he knows to interact. As a child, his parents probably argued a lot and most likely didn't have much time for him. So he learned that the way one interacts with another, is in heated debates. The insults that he throw don't apply to receiver, but to him. He says to Skipper, "you are very frightened people. Very frightened" (150). He is describing himself, underneath his facade of a grisly adult, is a sad, scared child. Kenneth also doesn't know how to accept help. Skipper attempts to send him a lifeline, during a heated debate, and Kenneth sends it right back to him saying "I don't need your pity thank you very much. I'd much rather drown in my self-loathing and my people-loathing". One might wonder what Norma sees in Kenneth, but she is able recognize that inner innocence in Kenneth- even though it is under a layer thick enough to keep a scientist in the Antartic warm in the dead of winter. Norma holds out in hope that this man, however awful, will get better. Kenneth is a cruel, judgmental, person. Then again, we all have a little bit of Kenneth in us because this is, "Our Story".
Kenneth is a complainer "he started complaining about the remoteness of the camp"(149). "He removed one of his gloves and complained" (149). Norma says that she likes Kenneth because he is "ambitious" and actually has goals in his life, unlike Bobby Crow. When you define ambitious, it is a strong desire to succeed. Does Kenneth really have a strong desire to succeed, or is he just a big dreamer? What he did to Norma, was play up a big dream that she's supposed to believe in. Kenneth is also a huge fighter with no self stability. IT seems like he spends too much time on his comebacks and not enough on his social skills. In all, he is an immature man who needs to argue for a reason, not argue to fight.
When Norma returns to Chinook, she realizes that she doesn't love Kenneth, she loves Bobby Crow. Although she might be attracted to what Kenneth appears to be, she is madly in love with who Bobby Crow really is, his inside. -Conor McFarland
Kenneth is crazy Plain old crazy And creepy And gross He is NOT the man for Norma They use the term marriage so loosely. Marriage in my opinion is about love and its a commitment- She doesn't love him- simply she does not there marriage is meaningless, she deserves a Bobby Crow, someone who will love her I think Kenneth has wandered into the wrong side of town, he belongs with a woman or man, who will take him for who he is, set him straight Arguing, as I well know, is pointless unless it has a point, I think Kenneth is trying to show off for the family "Go on. I can take it" (150). He is trying to prove himself to a 50 year old grump. Kenneth needs to chill a little, he needs to relax in his own self image Kenneth is insecure Kenneth needs help Kenneth is not Norma Kenneth needs to find a better pair of shoes.
There is a lot that can be said about Kenneth. For starters he is in no way in love with Norma. Kenneth tried to persuade or force Norma to marry him which doesn't show any sign of love for her. "She worked in an office where she met a man named Kenneth who took her for long drives in his Austin Healey sports car and tried to talk her into getting married"(146). If Kenneth does not love Norma why would he want to enter into a marriage with her? There is not any money to her name that would interest him, but it may be that he just wants to find someone to settle down with no matter who it is.
Kenneth doesn't try to make a good first impression on her family and by not trying, himself, neither does her family. If he is so much of a jerk that he can’t just try then Norma’s family was in all right to react badly towards him. When Kenneth doesn’t try to get along is yet another sign that he does not love her. Kenneth may not be a good thing for Norma but he seems to be a good thing for Dwight and the rest of the family. Because of their united hatred of Kenneth, the rest of the family has been brought closer together. (i.e.: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.) At this time, this is a very good thing for the relationship between Dwight and Toby.
All in all Kenneth is a jerk and doesn’t know how to control his emotions whether good or bad. -Abby Martinen
Kenneth is a very strange person with a very odd personality. He is just a plain angry person and it seems like he looks for the flaws in other people and ignores when people point out his flaws. He and Dwight do not get along and Dwight pretty much doesn't even respect Kenneth's precense. "'Just who the hell do you think you are?" Dwight said (150). Also, "She even, in the end, married him. But not before Dwight had nearly killed himself trying to stop her" (151). Kenneth is also kind of stubborn because when someone points out a flaw in his personality he thinks nothing of it. "He kept our blood up by saying, 'If you think that bothers me, you're sadly mistaken"(150). Also, it makes no sense why Norma is marrying Kenneth when she truly and clearly loves Bobby Crow. The only rational reason for her staying with Kenneth is his success but that's not a good reason considering she should want true happiness with Bobby Crow. ~Jon Malloy~
There is no positive description of Kenneth, nothing that could come close to create any form of attachment for Kenneth. En every scene he absolutely awful to everyone, including his wife, Toby’s beloved Norma. The only time we see him show affection for her, she is basically attacked by him. The second time he is stroking her back, but it’s a robotic movement, one without feeling or emotion, something he felt obligated to do. From what Toby says about kenneth there cannot be very many people in the world that would be able to stand him much less like him. At the moment I don’t like him, but I feel compelled to not let my judgement be final because he acts this way for a reason. I would rather read a little more about Kenneth’s life before I I bring judgment upon him, but at the moment with the knowledge I have about Kenneth, there is absolutely nothing I like about him. I would like to be able to figure out why Kenneth acts this way. He is obviously not a charming guy, I just don’t undestand why he became this way. Toby acts the way he does for a reason, but we do not so harshly judge him as we do Kenneth. Why is that? Is it because we have gotten to know him better? We know the battles he has in his head, the struggles he has gone through, and if he were to act like Kenneth at his age we would not mind as much as we do Kenneth. I feel like we must never forget that everyone has their own life story, a novel about them that no one else knows front to back. -Alex Wood
Cars are a symbol in This Boy’s Life that symbolize many things that drive the message of the book such as transformation, money, coolness, and freedom. “Our car boiled over just after my mother and I crossed the Continental Divide”(3). This quote is literally saying that their car broke down just after they crossed the actual Continental Divide. The car in this quote is symbolizing Rosemary and Toby’s life. Their life has not been going the way they would like and had just boiled over. “The only thing that needed fixing was the interior”(119). This is talking about Skipper’s car which actually symbolizes Skipper himself. Skipper needs to fix or find his personality and who he is and that is all that needed work. Once skipper fixes up his car, or finds his identity, he can go anywhere he chooses because he has freedom. Skipper’s car should eventually lead him to finding himself, and in time, true happiness. This is important because Skipper really isn’t happy with his life so far and he wants to fix up his car, or his life, so he can get away from Chinook and start his life over. “I never felt cramped in there until Skipper left for Mexico”(120).
“The human heart is a dark forest”(143). Tobias Wolff refers to the human heart just before he talks about how he can just tell that his mother doesn’t want him to go to Paris and be adopted by his aunt and uncle. The thing that stands out is the fact that he says the human heart is a dark forest instead of just saying that his or his mother’s are. Everyone in everyone in has at least one thing that gets them out of their dark forest for a while. Toby and Rosemary’s thing that gets them out of the dark forest is singing. “I learned that it’s a bad idea to swear when you’re in trouble, but a good idea to sing, if you can”(177). Toby crashes Dwight’s car into a ditch and this is when he says it. He feels worse when he swears but once he starts to sing. Dwight also has a like of music but it may symbolize something else like his ability to lead his family. “Sometimes, when he really got carried away, he would forget himself and blow on it, and a squawk would come out”(146). The squawk that Dwight would create may symbolize how he treats and leads his family. Even though music may be what gets Dwight out of his dark forest, it may also be a symbol of how he is as a person and a father.
Toby wants to figure out who he is by trying to be cool. Over the course of his life, Toby uses many different strategies to try to find his identity, but striving to seek coolness in himself was one of the biggest. “…the three of us would press together in front of Mrs. Silver’s full length mirror…and practice looking cool” (43). Here Wolff says that they would practice looking cool, but that does not make sense. To be cool is a state of mind, not a way of life or a sport that you can get better at. This is not something that happens overnight, it is just how you think about yourself and the other people around you. “Spit curls. Pants pulled down low on our hips…Collars raised behind our necks” (43). While Toby and his friends used Mrs. Silver’s mirror, they fixed their appearance to be cool. At this point in history, the greaser look was in style; naturally the boys thought it was cool. Though, what they thought was cool, might not have actually been cool at all. How they looked was just one other component to attempting to be cool.
Over time Toby’s identity is revealed, but not without his realization of being cool. He realizes that there isn’t a lot to being cool, that it’s just in his head. “We should have looked cool, but we didn’t” (43). Toby and his friends did everything they thought they could do to look cool. He understands that they tried too hard to look cool which ultimately is what made them look not cool. Toby recognizes who they really are which is not cool. This is just one step further to finding his identity. “But it wasn’t really our looks that made us uncool” (43). Toby sees that looks aren’t everything and they certainly are not the only factor to who someone is as a person. That what they wear and how they wear it isn’t important but what’s inside is what counts. Toby is finally starting to shed some light on his identity, though it is nowhere close to complete, by realizing that he is not and will never be cool.
The opposition to Dwight’s personality and actions induce a positive scar on Toby. Living with Dwight made Toby realize that he doesn’t want to be like him when he grows up. Thus, teaching him a lot of things to “All of Dwight’s complaints against me had the aim of giving me a definition of myself. They succeeded, but not in the way he wished. I defined my self by the opposition to him” (134). For all of Toby’s life, he’s been a lost boy, and moving in with Dwight has pushed him to find himself. Although Dwight is threatening, dangerous and doesn’t treat Toby with respect, he is a powerful influence to Toby because he is showing him what not to be like. Dwight’s demanding personality makes Toby want to change. “You’re in for a change, mister. You got that? You’re in for a whole nother ball game.” ( 91). Change and transformation has been Toby and Rosemary’s goal throughout the whole book and Dwight’s personality is what will contribute to this change. The “Whole New Deal” doesn’t stand for Toby moving in with Dwight, it represents that Toby is changing. In particular, Dwight’s apathy towards Toby leads Toby to gain intellectual thoughts and be a more independent person. “Once it got boring, I went for walks along the road just far enough so I could see the Tavern (134).” During those long walks, Toby’s mind probably reached places you could never imagine. His loneliness caused his mind to open up and capture new thoughts, ideas and experiments. Throughout the whole book, we talk about Toby being a lonely, lost boy. Though he is, all of his free time and less stress has caused him to become more mature, deep and intellectual in thought. “Now that I had grounds for guilt, I could no longer feel it (Now that I had grounds for guilt, I could no longer feel it (134).” What may lead Toby to success, is watching Dwight and Rosemary’s poor choices. While they’re making those choices, Toby is watching and taking notes in his head. Toby knows that he has gotten stronger since they moved from Florida, and that he is getting closer and closer to crossing the continental divide.
Tobias Wolff uses the Handbook as a symbol for “This Boy’s Life.” “But what I liked best about the Handbook was its voice, the bluff hail-fellow language by which it tried to make being a good boy seem adventurous, even romantic” (103). The handbook’s essence ties with “This Boy’s Life.” It is a memoir of the adventurous, arduous, and romantic life of a boy. The handbook is a guide for scouts as “This Boy’s Life” is a guide for Toby’s Life. Although Toby juxtaposes his life with that of true scouts, he does not look past the fact that his life is not the one it describes, but rather what he wants it to be. “I yielded easily to this comradely tone, forgetting while I did so that I was not the boy it supposed.” (103). Tobias draws attention to the fact that his life is a dark forest that he wandered aimlessly through, attempting to find his purpose and definition of himself. The Handbook is what Wolff perceives as a reflection of his life; he compares the Handbook, and all of its aspects, to the directional compass known as “This Boy’s Life.”
The Boys Life magazine represents Toby’s utmost belief in the idea that he really is an adventurous, honorable, and good boy. “Boys Life, the official scout magazine, worked on me in the same way. I read it in a trance, accepting without question its narcotic invitation to believe I was really no different from the boys whose hustle and pluck it celebrated” (103). Toby believes what he wants to believe; he makes the decision to ponder his dream, instead of making the dream reality. “We listened without objection to stories of usurped nobility that grew in preposterous intricacy with every telling. But we did not feel as if anything we said was a lie. We both believed that the real lie was told by our present unworthy circumstances.” Toby wants to be wealthy, powerful, adventurous, and noble; and he wants this so bad that he is willing to lie to society, and lie to himself to obtain it. Boy’s Life magazine is a story in the same aspects as one of Toby’s lies; it kindles dreams, it makes them grow in intricacy, and then it forms the illusion of existence within reality.
Rosemary Wolff’s past and present experiences with abuse damage Toby’s childhood. Rosemary has dealt with abuse since she was a child. “Once my mother started school, Daddy spanked her every night on the theory that she must’ve done something wrong that day… Then she had to kiss him and say, ‘Thank you, Daddy, for earning the delicious meal.’” (pg. 59) Because Rosemary grew up with an overly strict and abusive parent, she’s never been able to be that way to Toby. But children need discipline and someone who will guide them in the right direction, not just another friend. Rosemary is so comfortable with who she doesn’t want to be as a parent, so she struggles with what type of a parent she should be. Toby often doesn’t get the attention-both good and bad-that he needs from his mother because she doesn’t think that Toby needs discipline. Because Rosemary’s father also kept her away from boys as she was growing up, her idea of a relationship is flawed, so she allows herself to be abused and taken advantage of by men. “Dwight railed at her for refusing to appreciate his sacrifice in taking on a divorced woman with a kid…If my mother tried to argue back, he accused her of being disloyal…She followed him, her eyes on the ground. She didn’t look like a winner now.” (pg. 132, 135) Rosemary is also use to abuse so she allows it to happen to her. Being a single parent is definitely not easy and we see that Rosemary tries to make Toby’s life good and she even sacrifices her dignity to do it sometimes (pg. 54-55.) Rosemary is a lost soul who is capable of raising a child, but will not be satisfied without “love.” Throughout the book we readers are left with the question: Is it Toby that creates his mother’s unhappiness with the men she dates and Dwight, or does Rosemary bring this on herself? And as we read on, we find that both of those are correct answers. Certainly Toby doesn’t make it easy for Rosemary to date men, but Rosemary chooses bad men, because she thinks she doesn’t have a choice.
Toby is a lost boy and doesn’t know who he is as a person. Toby dreams of transformation and would like to change who he is. “I didn’t come to Utah to be the same boy I’d been before. I had my own dreams of transformation” (8). Toby thinks that if he changes his name, then he will be a completely different person. As the story progresses, Toby develops almost another identity for himself, Jack. Jack is who Toby would like to be, and is on the outside, but he knows that on the inside, he is a good person. Toby’s other persona, Jack, is a bad boy and does immature and illegal things. “On Halloween, Taylor and Silver and I broke out some windows in the school cafeteria…And we stole” (60, 61). We readers don’t know whether to feel sorry for Toby because he doesn’t know any better, or to be mad at him for doing stupid and rude things. But what this all comes down to is that if Toby had a positive male role model to help him find his identity, he wouldn’t have to do stupid things.
Toby’s desire to be cool is driven by the faults he finds in himself. Reading memory after memory the struggle Toby goes through as he tries to find his identity becomes apparent. These imperfections he finds in himself is what drives him to attempt being ‘cool’ which causes him to do something he may know is wrong: “The first egg hit the street beside him”(46). Toby throws this egg to appear ‘cool’, but this longing to be cool, in this particular situation is more driven by jealousy; jealousy of the ‘cool’ man with his car, his look, “he was everything we were not” (46). Toby again takes another, more extreme take at being ‘cool’:“With the tail of the comb I scratched Fuck You into the soft paint and once more told Silver, “Fuck You””(77). In writing obscene words on the bathroom wall Toby thinks he is being cool even though it is undeniable that if he were to be caught in this act, the consequences would be severe. Toby has imperfections and through the book we learn alongside him, about his faults in himself and his life. Toby acts upon finding each detail about himself, positive or negative; almost as if each new detail about himself held an act as a consequence of discovery. When he saw the cool man in his cool car he instantly was jealous not only recognizing his uncoolness he also discovers that he has the ability to become extremly jealous; acting upon this he eggs the poor mans beautiful Thunderbird, along with his delinquent friends who act the same way for the some of the same reasons. Toby tries to be cool from then on, vandalizing, stealing, doing whatever he can for attention -- which is what cool people get. This attention is something that a lot of people seek, but we see it in Toby especially as he goes through each bad new deed (which most he copied from Sister James in the beginning of the book.) The friends Toby hangs around influences how he acts, we don’t see him trying to be cool around his mother; Toby may just be trying to get attention from his friends. Rosemary must learn to control her own life before she tries to control Toby’s life. Toby needs something constant that he can always rely on. We pick up the autobiography immediately we are running away, from a bad relationship between Rosemary and a bad man: “… we were driving from Florida to Utah, to get away from a man my mother was afraid of…”(4.) If Rosemary’s life were in control she could help Toby with his instead of having him step in: “I rocked her and murmured to her. I was practiced at this…”(55). Rosemary is having troubles with her life, she choses the wrong men to like the one she was running away from and Gil the man she just went out with before finding Dwight who has major problems of his own (alcoholism). These men are all different sorts of father figures and Toby needs one solid one, a father figure who he wishes for: “I could give him sterling qualities…”(121) Toby wants a solid father figure to look up to instead of all these random men who have one thing in common: they take advantage of Toby’s mother. Toby throughout the book looks to friends and Rosemary’s father figures to find his identity as well. He is so interested in brotherhood and we see this as he goes through the stages of being a boy scout “I liked being a scout” (102). Rosemary seeks attention from men because she was never allowed to be around men when she was younger, and the education you get about chosing the right men to be with was never given to her. This makes her chose men like Roy, and Gil and who knows how many other men like them that have been in her life, one was so bad she crossed the Continental Divide to get away from him.
Toby becomes desperate to get away from Chinook and Dwight because of how terribly Dwight has been treating his mother and Toby. He starts stealing items on his paper route, which eventually turns into stealing money. Toby starts to think of himself as a bad person, realizing that the lying, cheating and stealing are a part of his identity. Toby even thinks of killing Dwight, but deep down he knows he would never be able to do that. All he can think about is getting he and Rosemary free and clear. Toby looks back on why he stole the money, “My idea was to steal enough so that I could run away”(133) but Toby never attempts to actually run away, knowing he could never leave his mother behind to with in the wrath of Dwight. “I was ready to do anything to get clear of Dwight”(133), he’s so angry with Dwight, not so much for abusing him, but for abusing his mother that he is tempted to pull the Winchester on him. Toby needs to admit to his mother how Dwight has been treating him so that she can finally realize that this marriage is a lost cause.
Dwight becomes even more abusive to Toby and Rosemary. This makes Toby angry and desperate to get away from Dwight and Chinook altogether. Toby starts stealing and acting out, as a way to get out some of his emotion. Toby even thinks of killing Dwight, but deep down he knows he would never be able to do that. All he can think about is getting himself and Rosemary free and clear. “My idea was to steal enough so that I could run away” (133) but Toby knows that he would never be able to live with guilt of leaving his mother to face the wrath of Dwight. “I was ready to do anything to get clear of Dwight”(133), he’s so angry with Dwight, not so much for abusing him, but for abusing his mother that he is tempted to pull the Winchester on him. Toby needs to admit to his mother how Dwight has been treating him so that she can finally realize that this marriage is a lost cause. -Hallie Coon
"I knew I was charged with a purpose and I knew I was at last worthy of the expectations that were planted in me when I sat where you sit." This quote is telling me that I have a purpose in English 9-A this year and I have to find what that purpose is and live up to any expectattions that are planted upon me. I know that I have not lived up to these expectations quite yet, but maybe I will be able to work hard and leave this year of English "charged with a purpose." If I do what I need to do then " at last be "worthy of the expectations."
24 comments:
Question : How do you feel about Kenneth?
Kenneth is angering and annoying. He always thinks he is right and everyone else is wrong, like when he "smirked and offered you his pittty for being so ignorant and missled. He also likes argueing which embarasses Norma and annoys the rest of her family. All he does is argue and complain. How can you get along with someone like that? He also complains about everything. If something is not perfect, or his idea of perfect, then he complains about it. If I knew a person like this I would probibly hate them. He does say one thing that is right. On page 50 he says "I only tell you this because I love you, but you are very frightened people. This is true. Everyone is frightened. Whethere it is about the future, or a paper, or a parent, for some reason everyone is frightened. Although Kenneth is right about fear, that does not make him a good person. He ruins Norma's life. He makes her so miserable she starts smoking, but has to hide that from him because he thinks only weak people smoke. He drains the life out of her, by argueing and complaining. Kenneth thinks he is so smart, but he needs a reality check. The reason everyone hates him is because he tries to make them believe his view of the world. His intentions might be good but he ends up killing Norma.
- Maddy Keefe
Kenneth is a terrible person. He makes Dwight look like an angel. He argues so much that he doesn't know how not to argue. He lays all of his cards out on the table and Skipper gets so agitated that he tells Kenneth to lay off. He replies: "'What are you afraid of, Skipper'"(150)? Dwight then says: "'Just who in the hell do you think you are'"(150?)? He is very arrogant and believes that whatever he says is worth hearing. The only way to shut him up is to turn the TV on. Then he goes into a trance.
Norma is also not in love with him. She A) just wants to get married and B) wanted to shut him up and make him stop bugging her about getting married. She did it for the sake of her sanity, not because of true love. She still loves Bobby Crow inside. The real difference between the two of them- Kenneth and Bobby is that Kenneth promises that he is "ambitious". Bobby stays true to himself and Norma and doesn't promise anything he doesn't have.
Norma becomes depressed and distraught about how Kenneth treats her. “But she was pale and angular, all her lazy lushness gone. Her green eyes blazed in the starkness of her face. She had taken up smoking-… [she would] go outside and puff greedily on a cigarette”(151-152). She pretended that she liked him and never complained about him, but through her body language and new habits, it was clear how she felt about Kenneth. It makes me sick to see how Kenneth treats Norma. This is an extreme statement, but it is almost like he treats her like property, not like his wife.
-Lydia W
Kenneth is employed, making money, and has good ambitions; everything Dwight puts as high priorities in a man. Although he has these good qualities, he is the most obnoxious, argumentative, and idiotic character in the book. “Norma tried to change the subject but Kenneth could take any comment and find something in it to deplore. Argument was the only kind of sound he knew how to make” (150). It is hard to believe this person actually existed; it is so easy to believe that he is a fictional character, put there to unite the family against a common enemy. “Kenneth pulled up the next afternoon and by dinnertime we all hated him” (149). He prospers as the single target we all hate; the people within Wolff’s memoir, as well as we the readers. Although he is probably the most annoying character in this book, he is also a key component of the story. This group of characters is closer to being a family than ever before. They can all agree on the fact that they hate Kenneth, as the saying goes; the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This is the key to peace for their family; but if it will last, we have yet to find out.
"How do you feel about Kenneth?"
Kenneth is probably the biggest loser in the entire story so far. He's a lot like Dwight, in that he's just a @$$ for the sake of it. What is his problem? WHAT IS EVERYONES PROBLEM IN THIS FAMILY? Norma's obviously not in love with him, but I think she married him just to please Dwight. Or maybe her crappy family led her to a crappy marriage.
Set his annoying features aside, Kenneth's outward appearance is actually pretty cool. The way he wears a golf hat, the golves he fiddles with as he gets out of his car-he just has a air of control about him. He also tempts himself with a pipe to learn self control. I'm not going to lie, that's pretty cool and admirable.
All in all, his negative traits and his positive traits kind of cancel each other out, making him an okay kind of person. Or rather, he's cool on the outside, and the world's biggest jerk on the inside.
Kenneth is Norma’s boyfriend and eventually fiancé and husband. At first I thought Kenneth was like Dwight, insecure about his weaknesses and mean. As I read on, I saw that Kenneth actually makes Dwight look like a normal person. Kenneth was never really liked by anyone in Toby’s family. Even Norma doesn’t really love Kenneth. “‘You are very frightened people. Very frightened’ ” (150). I agree with Kenneth on this passage and I think this proves why Norma puts up with Kenneth and pretends to love him. Norma is scared of being alone and unloved so she marries Kenneth to avoid that. Towards the end of the chapter, we see the old Norma slowly dying due to Kenneth. Norma not only ruins her chances of true love by being with Kenneth, but she also hurts Bobby Crow very badly (152.)
I don't like Kenneth. In the sotry all he does is fight with people. He fights, not argues. Arguing implies that he has a point to make. With fighting, you can fight for no purpose. He fights until the other person gives up and then he'll smugly smirk as if he's making fun of you for being so ignorant. He acts higher than everyone else and strengthens his will power by tempting himself to smoke. This proves his arrogance. By his disappearance in the chapter, for the first few hours he spends with the family they already hate him. He makes me hate Dwight less.
If I were to meet this person in real life, I wouldn't like him anyway. If I ever met this man Kenneth, I would try to ignore him and get as many people to do the same, because it seems that attention is what those types of people thrive off of.
Kenneth is a loathsome human being. He is cruel and mocking. He is extremely insecure, therefore he puts others down. In doing this, he creates hurt in the other person and it makes him feel better about his sorry self.
Directly after meeting him, the family comes to hate him. Norma is nowhere near loving him, she only marries him because he has a job, ambition and she has a guaranteed future with him. Kenneth treats Norma like property and she knows that he will never make her happy in the slightest way.
Kenneth never stops or slows arguing with, and insulting people, even if they are trying to be courteous, and trying with all their might not to strangle him with their bare hands. "Arguing was the only sound he knew how to make" (150).
Norma made the wrong decision in marrying Kenneth. She could have stayed with Bobby Crow, who obviously loved her and she him. If she had stayed with Bobby, maybe they wouldn't have been rich, but they both would have been happy together.
-Hallie Coon
Question:How do you feel about Kenneth?
Kenneth is misunderstood. He never learned how to interact with others, and now refuses to learn. He argues because it is the only way he knows to interact. As a child, his parents probably argued a lot and most likely didn't have much time for him. So he learned that the way one interacts with another, is in heated debates. The insults that he throw don't apply to receiver, but to him. He says to Skipper, "you are very frightened people. Very frightened" (150). He is describing himself, underneath his facade of a grisly adult, is a sad, scared child.
Kenneth also doesn't know how to accept help. Skipper attempts to send him a lifeline, during a heated debate, and Kenneth sends it right back to him saying "I don't need your pity thank you very much. I'd much rather drown in my self-loathing and my people-loathing". One might wonder what Norma sees in Kenneth, but she is able recognize that inner innocence in Kenneth- even though it is under a layer thick enough to keep a scientist in the Antartic warm in the dead of winter. Norma holds out in hope that this man, however awful, will get better. Kenneth is a cruel, judgmental, person. Then again, we all have a little bit of Kenneth in us because this is, "Our Story".
Kenneth is a complainer "he started complaining about the remoteness of the camp"(149). "He removed one of his gloves and complained" (149). Norma says that she likes Kenneth because he is "ambitious" and actually has goals in his life, unlike Bobby Crow. When you define ambitious, it is a strong desire to succeed. Does Kenneth really have a strong desire to succeed, or is he just a big dreamer? What he did to Norma, was play up a big dream that she's supposed to believe in. Kenneth is also a huge fighter with no self stability. IT seems like he spends too much time on his comebacks and not enough on his social skills. In all, he is an immature man who needs to argue for a reason, not argue to fight.
When Norma returns to Chinook, she realizes that she doesn't love Kenneth, she loves Bobby Crow. Although she might be attracted to what Kenneth appears to be, she is madly in love with who Bobby Crow really is, his inside.
-Conor McFarland
Kenneth is crazy
Plain old crazy
And creepy
And gross
He is NOT the man for Norma
They use the term marriage so loosely. Marriage in my opinion is about love and its a commitment- She doesn't love him- simply she does not
there marriage is meaningless, she deserves a Bobby Crow, someone who will love her
I think Kenneth has wandered into the wrong side of town, he belongs with a woman or man, who will take him for who he is, set him straight
Arguing, as I well know, is pointless unless it has a point,
I think Kenneth is trying to show off for the family
"Go on. I can take it" (150).
He is trying to prove himself to a 50 year old grump. Kenneth needs to chill a little, he needs to relax in his own self image
Kenneth is insecure
Kenneth needs help
Kenneth is not Norma
Kenneth needs to find a better pair of shoes.
The most recent post is Eliza's
Kenneth is a very strange person with a very odd personality.
There is a lot that can be said about Kenneth. For starters he is in no way in love with Norma. Kenneth tried to persuade or force Norma to marry him which doesn't show any sign of love for her. "She worked in an office where she met a man named Kenneth who took her for long drives in his Austin Healey sports car and tried to talk her into getting married"(146). If Kenneth does not love Norma why would he want to enter into a marriage with her? There is not any money to her name that would interest him, but it may be that he just wants to find someone to settle down with no matter who it is.
Kenneth doesn't try to make a good first impression on her family and by not trying, himself, neither does her family. If he is so much of a jerk that he can’t just try then Norma’s family was in all right to react badly towards him. When Kenneth doesn’t try to get along is yet another sign that he does not love her. Kenneth may not be a good thing for Norma but he seems to be a good thing for Dwight and the rest of the family. Because of their united hatred of Kenneth, the rest of the family has been brought closer together. (i.e.: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.) At this time, this is a very good thing for the relationship between Dwight and Toby.
All in all Kenneth is a jerk and doesn’t know how to control his emotions whether good or bad.
-Abby Martinen
Kenneth is a very strange person with a very odd personality. He is just a plain angry person and it seems like he looks for the flaws in other people and ignores when people point out his flaws. He and Dwight do not get along and Dwight pretty much doesn't even respect Kenneth's precense. "'Just who the hell do you think you are?" Dwight said (150). Also, "She even, in the end, married him. But not before Dwight had nearly killed himself trying to stop her" (151). Kenneth is also kind of stubborn because when someone points out a flaw in his personality he thinks nothing of it. "He kept our blood up by saying, 'If you think that bothers me, you're sadly mistaken"(150). Also, it makes no sense why Norma is marrying Kenneth when she truly and clearly loves Bobby Crow. The only rational reason for her staying with Kenneth is his success but that's not a good reason considering she should want true happiness with Bobby Crow.
~Jon Malloy~
There is no positive description of Kenneth, nothing that could come close to create any form of attachment for Kenneth. En every scene he absolutely awful to everyone, including his wife, Toby’s beloved Norma. The only time we see him show affection for her, she is basically attacked by him. The second time he is stroking her back, but it’s a robotic movement, one without feeling or emotion, something he felt obligated to do.
From what Toby says about kenneth there cannot be very many people in the world that would be able to stand him much less like him. At the moment I don’t like him, but I feel compelled to not let my judgement be final because he acts this way for a reason. I would rather read a little more about Kenneth’s life before I I bring judgment upon him, but at the moment with the knowledge I have about Kenneth, there is absolutely nothing I like about him.
I would like to be able to figure out why Kenneth acts this way. He is obviously not a charming guy, I just don’t undestand why he became this way. Toby acts the way he does for a reason, but we do not so harshly judge him as we do Kenneth. Why is that? Is it because we have gotten to know him better? We know the battles he has in his head, the struggles he has gone through, and if he were to act like Kenneth at his age we would not mind as much as we do Kenneth. I feel like we must never forget that everyone has their own life story, a novel about them that no one else knows front to back.
-Alex Wood
Jon Malloy
10/17/09
English 9-A
A. Kasprzak
Body Paragraph #1
Cars are a symbol in This Boy’s Life that symbolize many things that drive the message of the book such as transformation, money, coolness, and freedom. “Our car boiled over just after my mother and I crossed the Continental Divide”(3). This quote is literally saying that their car broke down just after they crossed the actual Continental Divide. The car in this quote is symbolizing Rosemary and Toby’s life. Their life has not been going the way they would like and had just boiled over. “The only thing that needed fixing was the interior”(119). This is talking about Skipper’s car which actually symbolizes Skipper himself. Skipper needs to fix or find his personality and who he is and that is all that needed work. Once skipper fixes up his car, or finds his identity, he can go anywhere he chooses because he has freedom. Skipper’s car should eventually lead him to finding himself, and in time, true happiness. This is important because Skipper really isn’t happy with his life so far and he wants to fix up his car, or his life, so he can get away from Chinook and start his life over. “I never felt cramped in there until Skipper left for Mexico”(120).
Jon Malloy
10/17/09
English 9-A
A. Kasprzak
Body Paragraph #2
“The human heart is a dark forest”(143). Tobias Wolff refers to the human heart just before he talks about how he can just tell that his mother doesn’t want him to go to Paris and be adopted by his aunt and uncle. The thing that stands out is the fact that he says the human heart is a dark forest instead of just saying that his or his mother’s are. Everyone in everyone in has at least one thing that gets them out of their dark forest for a while. Toby and Rosemary’s thing that gets them out of the dark forest is singing. “I learned that it’s a bad idea to swear when you’re in trouble, but a good idea to sing, if you can”(177). Toby crashes Dwight’s car into a ditch and this is when he says it. He feels worse when he swears but once he starts to sing. Dwight also has a like of music but it may symbolize something else like his ability to lead his family. “Sometimes, when he really got carried away, he would forget himself and blow on it, and a squawk would come out”(146). The squawk that Dwight would create may symbolize how he treats and leads his family. Even though music may be what gets Dwight out of his dark forest, it may also be a symbol of how he is as a person and a father.
Abby Martinen
English 9A
Kasprzak
10/19/09
2 Body Paragraphs:
Toby wants to figure out who he is by trying to be cool. Over the course of his life, Toby uses many different strategies to try to find his identity, but striving to seek coolness in himself was one of the biggest. “…the three of us would press together in front of Mrs. Silver’s full length mirror…and practice looking cool” (43). Here Wolff says that they would practice looking cool, but that does not make sense. To be cool is a state of mind, not a way of life or a sport that you can get better at. This is not something that happens overnight, it is just how you think about yourself and the other people around you. “Spit curls. Pants pulled down low on our hips…Collars raised behind our necks” (43). While Toby and his friends used Mrs. Silver’s mirror, they fixed their appearance to be cool. At this point in history, the greaser look was in style; naturally the boys thought it was cool. Though, what they thought was cool, might not have actually been cool at all. How they looked was just one other component to attempting to be cool.
Over time Toby’s identity is revealed, but not without his realization of being cool. He realizes that there isn’t a lot to being cool, that it’s just in his head. “We should have looked cool, but we didn’t” (43). Toby and his friends did everything they thought they could do to look cool. He understands that they tried too hard to look cool which ultimately is what made them look not cool. Toby recognizes who they really are which is not cool. This is just one step further to finding his identity. “But it wasn’t really our looks that made us uncool” (43). Toby sees that looks aren’t everything and they certainly are not the only factor to who someone is as a person. That what they wear and how they wear it isn’t important but what’s inside is what counts. Toby is finally starting to shed some light on his identity, though it is nowhere close to complete, by realizing that he is not and will never be cool.
The opposition to Dwight’s personality and actions induce a positive scar on Toby. Living with Dwight made Toby realize that he doesn’t want to be like him when he grows up. Thus, teaching him a lot of things to “All of Dwight’s complaints against me had the aim of giving me a definition of myself. They succeeded, but not in the way he wished. I defined my self by the opposition to him” (134). For all of Toby’s life, he’s been a lost boy, and moving in with Dwight has pushed him to find himself. Although Dwight is threatening, dangerous and doesn’t treat Toby with respect, he is a powerful influence to Toby because he is showing him what not to be like. Dwight’s demanding personality makes Toby want to change. “You’re in for a change, mister. You got that? You’re in for a whole nother ball game.” ( 91). Change and transformation has been Toby and Rosemary’s goal throughout the whole book and Dwight’s personality is what will contribute to this change. The “Whole New Deal” doesn’t stand for Toby moving in with Dwight, it represents that Toby is changing.
In particular, Dwight’s apathy towards Toby leads Toby to gain intellectual thoughts and be a more independent person. “Once it got boring, I went for walks along the road just far enough so I could see the Tavern (134).” During those long walks, Toby’s mind probably reached places you could never imagine. His loneliness caused his mind to open up and capture new thoughts, ideas and experiments. Throughout the whole book, we talk about Toby being a lonely, lost boy. Though he is, all of his free time and less stress has caused him to become more mature, deep and intellectual in thought. “Now that I had grounds for guilt, I could no longer feel it (Now that I had grounds for guilt, I could no longer feel it (134).” What may lead Toby to success, is watching Dwight and Rosemary’s poor choices. While they’re making those choices, Toby is watching and taking notes in his head. Toby knows that he has gotten stronger since they moved from Florida, and that he is getting closer and closer to crossing the continental divide.
~Conor McFarland
Tobias Wolff uses the Handbook as a symbol for “This Boy’s Life.” “But what I liked best about the Handbook was its voice, the bluff hail-fellow language by which it tried to make being a good boy seem adventurous, even romantic” (103). The handbook’s essence ties with “This Boy’s Life.” It is a memoir of the adventurous, arduous, and romantic life of a boy. The handbook is a guide for scouts as “This Boy’s Life” is a guide for Toby’s Life. Although Toby juxtaposes his life with that of true scouts, he does not look past the fact that his life is not the one it describes, but rather what he wants it to be. “I yielded easily to this comradely tone, forgetting while I did so that I was not the boy it supposed.” (103). Tobias draws attention to the fact that his life is a dark forest that he wandered aimlessly through, attempting to find his purpose and definition of himself. The Handbook is what Wolff perceives as a reflection of his life; he compares the Handbook, and all of its aspects, to the directional compass known as “This Boy’s Life.”
The Boys Life magazine represents Toby’s utmost belief in the idea that he really is an adventurous, honorable, and good boy. “Boys Life, the official scout magazine, worked on me in the same way. I read it in a trance, accepting without question its narcotic invitation to believe I was really no different from the boys whose hustle and pluck it celebrated” (103). Toby believes what he wants to believe; he makes the decision to ponder his dream, instead of making the dream reality. “We listened without objection to stories of usurped nobility that grew in preposterous intricacy with every telling. But we did not feel as if anything we said was a lie. We both believed that the real lie was told by our present unworthy circumstances.” Toby wants to be wealthy, powerful, adventurous, and noble; and he wants this so bad that he is willing to lie to society, and lie to himself to obtain it. Boy’s Life magazine is a story in the same aspects as one of Toby’s lies; it kindles dreams, it makes them grow in intricacy, and then it forms the illusion of existence within reality.
Rosemary Wolff’s past and present experiences with abuse damage Toby’s childhood. Rosemary has dealt with abuse since she was a child. “Once my mother started school, Daddy spanked her every night on the theory that she must’ve done something wrong that day… Then she had to kiss him and say, ‘Thank you, Daddy, for earning the delicious meal.’” (pg. 59) Because Rosemary grew up with an overly strict and abusive parent, she’s never been able to be that way to Toby. But children need discipline and someone who will guide them in the right direction, not just another friend. Rosemary is so comfortable with who she doesn’t want to be as a parent, so she struggles with what type of a parent she should be. Toby often doesn’t get the attention-both good and bad-that he needs from his mother because she doesn’t think that Toby needs discipline. Because Rosemary’s father also kept her away from boys as she was growing up, her idea of a relationship is flawed, so she allows herself to be abused and taken advantage of by men. “Dwight railed at her for refusing to appreciate his sacrifice in taking on a divorced woman with a kid…If my mother tried to argue back, he accused her of being disloyal…She followed him, her eyes on the ground. She didn’t look like a winner now.” (pg. 132, 135) Rosemary is also use to abuse so she allows it to happen to her. Being a single parent is definitely not easy and we see that Rosemary tries to make Toby’s life good and she even sacrifices her dignity to do it sometimes (pg. 54-55.) Rosemary is a lost soul who is capable of raising a child, but will not be satisfied without “love.” Throughout the book we readers are left with the question: Is it Toby that creates his mother’s unhappiness with the men she dates and Dwight, or does Rosemary bring this on herself? And as we read on, we find that both of those are correct answers. Certainly Toby doesn’t make it easy for Rosemary to date men, but Rosemary chooses bad men, because she thinks she doesn’t have a choice.
Toby is a lost boy and doesn’t know who he is as a person. Toby dreams of transformation and would like to change who he is. “I didn’t come to Utah to be the same boy I’d been before. I had my own dreams of transformation” (8). Toby thinks that if he changes his name, then he will be a completely different person. As the story progresses, Toby develops almost another identity for himself, Jack. Jack is who Toby would like to be, and is on the outside, but he knows that on the inside, he is a good person. Toby’s other persona, Jack, is a bad boy and does immature and illegal things. “On Halloween, Taylor and Silver and I broke out some windows in the school cafeteria…And we stole” (60, 61). We readers don’t know whether to feel sorry for Toby because he doesn’t know any better, or to be mad at him for doing stupid and rude things. But what this all comes down to is that if Toby had a positive male role model to help him find his identity, he wouldn’t have to do stupid things.
Toby’s desire to be cool is driven by the faults he finds in himself. Reading memory after memory the struggle Toby goes through as he tries to find his identity becomes apparent. These imperfections he finds in himself is what drives him to attempt being ‘cool’ which causes him to do something he may know is wrong: “The first egg hit the street beside him”(46). Toby throws this egg to appear ‘cool’, but this longing to be cool, in this particular situation is more driven by jealousy; jealousy of the ‘cool’ man with his car, his look, “he was everything we were not” (46). Toby again takes another, more extreme take at being ‘cool’:“With the tail of the comb I scratched Fuck You into the soft paint and once more told Silver, “Fuck You””(77). In writing obscene words on the bathroom wall Toby thinks he is being cool even though it is undeniable that if he were to be caught in this act, the consequences would be severe. Toby has imperfections and through the book we learn alongside him, about his faults in himself and his life. Toby acts upon finding each detail about himself, positive or negative; almost as if each new detail about himself held an act as a consequence of discovery. When he saw the cool man in his cool car he instantly was jealous not only recognizing his uncoolness he also discovers that he has the ability to become extremly jealous; acting upon this he eggs the poor mans beautiful Thunderbird, along with his delinquent friends who act the same way for the some of the same reasons. Toby tries to be cool from then on, vandalizing, stealing, doing whatever he can for attention -- which is what cool people get. This attention is something that a lot of people seek, but we see it in Toby especially as he goes through each bad new deed (which most he copied from Sister James in the beginning of the book.) The friends Toby hangs around influences how he acts, we don’t see him trying to be cool around his mother; Toby may just be trying to get attention from his friends.
Rosemary must learn to control her own life before she tries to control Toby’s life. Toby needs something constant that he can always rely on. We pick up the autobiography immediately we are running away, from a bad relationship between Rosemary and a bad man: “… we were driving from Florida to Utah, to get away from a man my mother was afraid of…”(4.) If Rosemary’s life were in control she could help Toby with his instead of having him step in: “I rocked her and murmured to her. I was practiced at this…”(55). Rosemary is having troubles with her life, she choses the wrong men to like the one she was running away from and Gil the man she just went out with before finding Dwight who has major problems of his own (alcoholism). These men are all different sorts of father figures and Toby needs one solid one, a father figure who he wishes for: “I could give him sterling qualities…”(121) Toby wants a solid father figure to look up to instead of all these random men who have one thing in common: they take advantage of Toby’s mother. Toby throughout the book looks to friends and Rosemary’s father figures to find his identity as well. He is so interested in brotherhood and we see this as he goes through the stages of being a boy scout “I liked being a scout” (102). Rosemary seeks attention from men because she was never allowed to be around men when she was younger, and the education you get about chosing the right men to be with was never given to her. This makes her chose men like Roy, and Gil and who knows how many other men like them that have been in her life, one was so bad she crossed the Continental Divide to get away from him.
Toby becomes desperate to get away from Chinook and Dwight because of how terribly Dwight has been treating his mother and Toby. He starts stealing items on his paper route, which eventually turns into stealing money. Toby starts to think of himself as a bad person, realizing that the lying, cheating and stealing are a part of his identity. Toby even thinks of killing Dwight, but deep down he knows he would never be able to do that. All he can think about is getting he and Rosemary free and clear. Toby looks back on why he stole the money, “My idea was to steal enough so that I could run away”(133) but Toby never attempts to actually run away, knowing he could never leave his mother behind to with in the wrath of Dwight. “I was ready to do anything to get clear of Dwight”(133), he’s so angry with Dwight, not so much for abusing him, but for abusing his mother that he is tempted to pull the Winchester on him. Toby needs to admit to his mother how Dwight has been treating him so that she can finally realize that this marriage is a lost cause.
Dwight becomes even more abusive to Toby and Rosemary. This makes Toby angry and desperate to get away from Dwight and Chinook altogether. Toby starts stealing and acting out, as a way to get out some of his emotion. Toby even thinks of killing Dwight, but deep down he knows he would never be able to do that. All he can think about is getting himself and Rosemary free and clear. “My idea was to steal enough so that I could run away” (133) but Toby knows that he would never be able to live with guilt of leaving his mother to face the wrath of Dwight. “I was ready to do anything to get clear of Dwight”(133), he’s so angry with Dwight, not so much for abusing him, but for abusing his mother that he is tempted to pull the Winchester on him. Toby needs to admit to his mother how Dwight has been treating him so that she can finally realize that this marriage is a lost cause.
-Hallie Coon
"I knew I was charged with a purpose and I knew I was at last worthy of the expectations that were planted in me when I sat where you sit." This quote is telling me that I have a purpose in English 9-A this year and I have to find what that purpose is and live up to any expectattions that are planted upon me. I know that I have not lived up to these expectations quite yet, but maybe I will be able to work hard and leave this year of English "charged with a purpose." If I do what I need to do then " at last be "worthy of the expectations."
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