The Boys Life free essay sample

You know youve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. † This quote by Paul Sweeney describes exactly how I felt after reading and watching Tobias Wolff’s memoir This Boy’s Life. After I closed the book and once the credits started to roll, I felt as if something in my life went missing. I speak for everyone when I say that it’s impossible to walk away from this story without taking something away from it. Audrey Hepburn says that everything she has learned in life, she learned from movies. A quote from Groucho Marx stated that when he read a book, he brought something away from it. Even if he learned a new word or a lesson in life that he could live by, he at least remembered something. After reading a book or watching a movie, there is always something that you can say you did not know before. We will write a custom essay sample on The Boys Life or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page So does the movie and memoir This Boy’s Life have any value? Yes this book does have value, what book doesn’t?. The value of this book and movie can be determined by the lessons it teaches, how people can relate to it, and new learning experience and fun it provides in the English curriculum. Slow and steady wins the race. He that has many friends has no friends. We all become familiar with these lessons but where did we learn them? We learn lessons from parents and grandparents that have passed them down but the most common place we learn valuable life lessons would be from books. Books, both fiction and non-fiction, teach lessons that can help us later on in life. Examples of books that have very valuable life lessons include The Tortoise and the Hare, Horton Hatches the Egg, and many other fables and children’s books. Horton Hatches the Egg teaches that it’s important to keep your promises because faithfulness has its own rewards. Like many other stories, This Boy’s Life has many important lessons in it too. Think before you act would be an example of a life lesson that this book teaches. During this story, Toby does not do much thinking before he acts and it gets him in many sticky situations. During the book and the movie, Toby hangs out with some of his friends from Concrete. While Toby was intoxicated, he thought it would be a good idea to walk across a tree branch. The tree branch suddenly snapped. He fell down and rolled down the hill until he landed in some bushes where his friends could not find him. Toby should have thought about the consequences of drinking before he decided to do it. Another incident, which happens in both the movie and the book, when Toby fails to think before he acts, occurs when he writes the obscene words on the bathroom wall. This got him in serious trouble and could have been avoided if he took a few seconds to think about it. Wolff writes, â€Å"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. We were going to change our luck. †. This demonstrates the lesson if you don’t succeed try and try again. They keep trying different places to live at and people to live with until they finally found somewhere that works for them. They try many different places like Utah, Seattle, and Concrete. As it stated at the end of the movie, Rosemary ended up going back to Florida while Toby went up to New York. This story also taught the lesson that every adult wants to embed in a child’s head, always tell the truth. Throughout the entire story Toby has a hard time telling the truth. An example is when he writes the letters to Annette and Alice. He told them that he was rich and that his father was a rancher or owned a fleet of fishing boats. He also lied to them about his age and where he lived. â€Å"The priest gave me my penance and absolved me. As I left the confessional I heard his own door open and close. Sister James cane forward to meet me again, and we waited together as the priest made his way to where we stood. Breathing hoarsely, he steadied himself against a pillar. He laid his other hand on my shoulder. â€Å"That was fine,† he said. â€Å"Just fine. He gave my shoulders a squeeze. â€Å"You have a fine boy here, Sister James. † She smiled. â€Å"So I do, Father. So I do. . Along with lying to Alice and Annette, he also did not tell the truth to the Father and Sister James. In the book and the movie we witness Jack talking to Sister James. She tells him all of her confessions. When he goes into confess, he tells the Father everythin g that Sister James said and not what he himself wants to confess. Lying to the priest, Sister James, Alice and Annette, and even his mother gave them false impressions which in some cases can make problems even worse. Not only does this memoir and movie have value because of the lessons it teaches but also because of the way people can relate to it. C. S. Lewis once said, â€Å"We read to know we are not alone. † When we read a book, our mind automatically try’s to find ways in which we can relate to a particular event or character in the story. Many people can relate to This Boy’s Life, especially teenagers. During the story Tobias Wolff, or also known as Toby and Jack, is a troubled teenager. He searches for acceptance by doing things like smoking, writing on walls, stealing things and also vandalism. In many of the scenes from the movie we see him smoking with his friends, and in others we see him drinking. Some call this type of behavior peer pressure. Peer pressure happens to everyone one time or another. Toby’s parents got a divorce and Toby ended up living with his mother. Since his father is in another state and he doesn’t have that much contact with him Toby misses a big part of his family. Many kids who don’t have a father or their parents have had a divorce can relate to Toby. During the movie and the book, Toby and his mother move around a lot. They have lived in many different states and in different houses. Many families move to either different cities or states because of jobs or sometimes family. So anyone who has moved, even just down the street, can relate to this part of the story. â€Å"At the end of every show the local station gave an address for Mousketeer Mail. I had been writing Annette. †. Every kid has or has had a crush on a TV show or movie character and most of us have probably written to them in hopes for a response just like Toby did. When writing to Alice and Annette, he lies about his life. He makes his life seem very extravagant and amazing. Many people lie to others to make their life or their experiences seem more enjoyable and exciting to listen to. The value of the memoir and movie can also be determined by the variety and the new learning experience it provides in the English classroom. When I walk into the room and my teacher says that we will be reading a book all I think to myself, â€Å"really another one † but this experience was anything but ordinary. After the book was over, I thought that we finished completely. Mrs. Harshman told us that we would be watching the movie that went along with the book. Watching a film after reading the book was like learning to ride a bike all over again. It became a great learning experience for both my classmates and I. It cleared up parts of the book that I may have been uncertain about and made the picture in my head more clear. For example, in one part of the movie Dwight and Toby drive up to Concrete and along the way Dwight stops at a tavern. Dwight drives drunk and swerves all over the road, which scares Toby. When I read this part of the book I did not know that Dwight was drunk at the time, I just thought he tried to scare Toby. When I saw the movie, it cleared this part of the book up for me. When we watched the movie it also gave us a chance to compare which one in our opinion was better. Along with that, we also found which parts of the book the director left out and let us brainstorm why we thought he left out those parts. By doing this, it helped us to walk in another person’s shoes because we had to think like directors. For instance, on page three and four, Wolff writes, â€Å"By the time we got there, quite a few people were standing along the cliff where the truck went over. It had smashed through the guardrails and fallen hundreds of feet through empty space to the river below, where it lay on its back among the boulders. It looked pitifully small. A stream of thick black smoke rose from the cab, feathering out the wind. My mother asked whether anyone had gone to report the accident. Someone had. We stood with the others at the cliff’s edge. Nobody spoke. My mother put her arm around my shoulder. †. On page three through four, Toby and his mother begin driving to Utah when they come across a car crash. The director did not include this part of the book in the movie. We all believed because he did not add it because it foreshadowed Toby and Rosemary’s future. Wolff writes, â€Å"Like chess or music, coolness claimed its own out of some mysterious impulse of recognition. Uncoolness did likewise. We had been claimed by uncoolness. †. This quote came from the section of the book where Toby and Silver stood front of the mirror with their hair combed back, cigarettes dangling out of their mouth, and their pants pulled down on their hips. Like the car crash scene, the director did not include this section of the book in the movie. Instead, the movie went straight to the scene where Toby, Silver and Taylor are watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. As the credits started to roll and the book closed, the whispers started to roar. From every direction you could hear opinions of the movie and the book. Whether the movie and the book were good or not is merely an opinion but whether the book has value or not can be answered with a simple yes. The value of the film and memoir This Boy’s Life can be determined by the lessons that it teaches, the ability to relate to the book, and the new learning experience and fun it puts into the English classroom.