This Boys Life reading assignment pgs 3-84

 length 300-350 words, cite quotes, no WC sheet needed. This Boys Life we are up to page  84For the first two assigned reading sections of Wolff’s memoir , select one area of introspection in each and 1) identify how the adult Wollf understands the experience he related  as an adultand 2) comment on what the telling was that led to the introspection AND identify 1 literary element that enhanced the telling.

Some things the professor discusses 
LECTURE PART 1I – Regarding your reading of Tobias Wolff This Boy’s Life pages 3-33
Thinking about the generic structure of memoir, apply its components as you read through this text. For beginners, consider how the opening pages provide an inciting moment that functions as a “hook” that gets you involved in the story. Also, how does this incident foreshadow or connect to the story’s narrative? Doing this can take you beyond thinking of a work too literally and veering towards just summarizing what is being told. Our aim is to be more analytical and critical, always using textual evidence to support our responses and ideas.   While you read pages 34-84 in Wolff’s memoir, I hope you have given thought to his use of the generic structure of memoir and the strong writing that comes through his voice and articulate use of the literary elements
This week I will note specifically cover what is in the pages in the lecture. We will do that on Zoom. Instead, I want to reiterate a few important points about the genre.
Memoir has become a very-important literary genre, one that is almost flooding the bookselling market and many have become “best sellers.” However, there is a world of difference between a popular best seller and a book that becomes a literary success, one that has academic value and has made it on to college curriculum. Literature, as opposed to good books that may become best sellers or even made into film, is a work of art that has a connectedness to the literary tradition, generally employs recognizable intertextual connections to classics, and of course, are artistically crafted. For you, as students in a literature class, this is important to remember.
 
Tobias Wolff’s 1989 memoir (non-fiction) was in the vanguard of the booming presence of memoir  in the college classroom. Top ranked memoirists like Mary Karr credit him as being the trailblazer who influenced their work and the popularity of the genre. His story, like Torres’ autobiographical novel (fiction) and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (non-fiction), is also classified as a coming-of-age story. Each of them charts a challenging journey from deprivation and hardship that was profoundly influenced by reading books and imagining themselves in a better life. All have a desire to reinvent themselves. Literature and education paved the road that leads to their success. In the end self-invention or self-creation takes place. In a sociology or psychology course many of you may have studied Maslow’s theory of the Hierarchy of Needs that concerns individual growth from basic needs to higher ones that some though not all experience. At the top of this upwards pyramid is SELF-ACTUALIZATION, i.e. reaching your own full potential. Our texts are all stories that result in this.
One feature of Wolff’s work that makes it a successful memoir is his command of the confessional. You might think about that as his  telling on himself in his memoir, and that is fine, but remember too it is an old and honored literary mode that appears in works of  poetry, essays, and other genres. Throughout the memoir, Wolff recalls his difficult childhood, but provides an in-depth look at how “Jack” was frequently in trouble, spinning out lies, and neglectful of his schoolwork and other responsibilities. Note as you review the book, how this is not restricted to only one section, but pervades the text.
His problems, like those of his mother, are part of the book’s subtext (another literary element he employs). The subtext here is that troubled people are shaped by their experiences with trouble people, especially those who raised them. In this week’s section, in his characterization of his mother,  he may adore her,  but he shapes her character as rather detached from making good choices and is mostly rather slow to action. He goes into great detail about her own parents, especially her father’s abusive and creepy obsessions. Read this carefully, taking note of his placing the retrospective about Rosemary’s troubled upbringing beside his increasing bad behavior and introduction into Dwight’s family. Think too about how adapted moments in the film play out in the written word.

As Jack and his mother settle into a new environment, what strikes you about their transition? Which literary elements enable Wolff to “show” the reader his spirited if a bit wayward youth? What does he seem to  forefront—putting emphasis on–concerning his relationship with his mother?
This section of the text, as with most memoirs, introduces the challenges [or whatever the main point of the telling is] that the teller is confronted with. In the film, as you would recall if you watched it carefully, Jack’s challenges have the benefit of visual presentation, good direction, expert camera and lighting techniques, and wonderful method acting. Reading the text requires that we make the picture by grappling with the author’s use of language and other literary elements [you received a list in lecture 1].
Note how Jack’s lies in this section of the book will continue as you get further in and then play a major role in the transformation he undergoes on his journey to becoming himself. Lying as being self-destructive is common to many coming of age stories, in particular those who in adulthood become writers. Hiding is another behavior they need to overcome. The new film version of Dear Evan Hanson, though based on a memoir, but certainly a coming-of-age story, makes the point towards the resolution that becoming one’s true self necessitates the use of lying and hiding.
As you read these pages, take note of how the challenges Jack had already experienced were exacerbated by financial instability and exposure to the very screwed up and abusive Roy.