Week 1 Post A

"This Boy's Life" by Tobias Wolf

Vocab:

ornery(6): ugly and unpleasant is disposition or temper.

taciturn(8): inclined to silence; reserved in speech; reluctant to join in conversation.

Appeals:

1. "I didn't come to Utah to be the same boy I'd been before" (pg.8). This shows that the author wasn't happy with his life and was excited to start over when he moved to Utah. This appeals to me emotionally, because you feel for him, since he didn't have such a good life back in Florida.
2. "It was 1955 and we were driving from Florida to Utah, to get away from a man my mother was afraid of and to get rich on uranium" (4). This is logical appeal and I think it is interesting that Tobias Wolf (the author) said "the man my mother was afraid of" which refers to is dad, but it doesn't say that he is afraid of him.
3. "I also wrote long letters to my pen pal in Phoenix, Arizona. Her name was Alice. My class had begun exchanging letters with her class since school began. We were supposed to write once a month but I wrote at least once a week, ten, twelve, fifteen pages at a time" (pg.13). This shows that Toby is lonely and needs some one to talk to, so in response he writes many letters to his pen pal.

Quote:

"He always seemed glad to see me. If I was lucky he would put a couple of rifles in his Jeep and we'd drive into the desert to shoot at cans and look for ore. He'd caught the uranium bug from my mother" (pg.13). It seems that Toby is a little torn between his father and his mother. He enjoys spending time with both of them, however Toby's dad can get abusive towards his mother. This definetely must have been tough for Toby to deal with.

Theme:

The main theme that I find in the book, "This Boy's Life" thus far is moving on from tough times. Toby wants to have an improved life when he moves away from Florida, this is shown in the quote that i used for my first appeal. He regains confidence when him and his mom move to Utah and hopes to become a successful individual and believes he doesn't need any help from anyone. I think that it is important for him to have goals in life if he plans to be successful.