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Do Well and Let Them Talk
A class blog for the Berwick Academy English 9F class.
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Do Well and Let Them Talk
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Toby needs someone to get into his head that his biological father is not a good person and will never be the father figure that Toby imagines. “He had the advantage always enjoyed by the inconsistent parent, of not being there to be found imperfect” (121). Toby doesn’t know what his actual father is really like; he makes up fantasies to replace what he has forgotten. Toby has never had a father figure in his life. He doesn’t know what to expect so he imagines having the perfect father. He dreams that one day he will be able to travel to Connecticut and see his father and reconnect. He doesn’t understand that there was never any connection. “I could give him sterling qualities and imagine good reasons, even romantic reasons, why he had taken no interest, why he had never written to me, why he seemed to have forgotten I existed” (121). Toby should have known better. Everything he came up with was just covering up and distracting him from the fact that he knows his father does not really care about him. He doesn’t want himself to believe that so he puts it out of his mind. He dreams, or maybe even just hopes, that his father had legitimate reasons for taking no interest in his life.
Dwight is supposed to take on the role of Toby’s father, but he doesn’t know how. Dwight is rude and cannot see himself. His own children dislike him. “A couple shots hadn’t even hit the paper” … “That thing is a menace. You ought to get rid of it. It shoots wild.” (72&73). Dwight is the type of person who doesn’t think he does anything wrong. It’s always everyone else’s fault. That is not the thing that adults are supposed to teach their children. Dwight should teach Toby to take responsibility for his actions, not blame the rest of the world. “I was ready to do anything to get clear of Dwight. “I even thought of killing him, shooting him down some night while he was picking on my mother” (133). That is how much Toby can’t stand Dwight. Parents are supposed to be role models. Dwight is anything but that. He even teaches Toby that it’s okay to fight. Dwight is not the father figure that Toby needs.
Toby is naturally attracted by the unknowns of his father because he can fill in the blanks. All of his life, Toby had negative male role models. Roy and Dwight are both bad men that Toby spent expanses of his life with. Toby knows these men and knows that they are bad. However, since Toby does not know who his real father is, he can imagine him to be whoever he wants. To Toby, his real father could be the diamond in the rough. He has several questions about him and no right or wrong answers. “I could see him as I wanted to see him” (121). He fantasizes about him and gives him characteristics that he imagines a good father would have. Toby gives his father excuses for leaving and never contacting him. He wishes that he could be with this ideal father instead of Dwight. Life with Dwight is so horrendous, Toby imagines that life with the man who abandoned him would be better. His imagined father also gives him comfort. Dwight even insults Toby’s father. He tries to make himself look better by making remarks about how Toby’s father was never there for him. “..but all these qualities.. made my father fascinating” (121). This makes Toby hate his life more and the man he doesn’t know more appealing. It also interests Toby about all the things he doesn’t know. Therefore he fills in the blanks to make his father the greatest father he can think of.
While searching for his father, Toby is really searching for himself. Toby is a rebellious adolescent. He has no concrete identity. Each time he moves, he has the opportunity to fix his flaws. “I thought that in Chinook, away from Taylor and Silver, away from Marian, away from people who had already made up their minds about me, I could be different” (89) Each move he could introduce himself as someone else. Someone that people from the last town didn’t know. Someone totally different. Toby imagines himself to be people that appeal to him. He dresses up like a soldier and aims his gun at unsuspecting civilians to feel like a person with power over others. When he reads Boy’s Life he feels like someone different. “I read in a trance, accepting without question its narcotic invitation to believe that I was really no different from the boys whose hustle and pluck it celebrated” (103). He wants to believe that he is strong and dependant, therefore he feels that he actually is. He feels that he could live by himself with no help. So much, in fact, that he strongly considers running away to Alaska. If he had run away, chances are that he would have come back to Dwight soon after leaving. Toby’s imagination is so powerful, it skews the truth in his mind.
Breandan Haley
When Rosemary crosses the continental divide she is looking for freedom and a chance at a working family, but what she finds is Dwight and several men who she tries to have a family life with but ends up running away. Rosemary has lacked freedom in her life because of her father’s abuse. She aspires to find that lost freedom when she crosses the continental divide. She believes at first that a being with Dwight could provide that freedom, but she soon finds out, “Marrying Dwight meant quitting her job, giving up the house, really burning down her bridges” (99). Rosemary experiments with relationships before she met Dwight, in the hopes of finding a family. Rosemary’s father made her childhood a nightmare, “After dessert he spanked her. Then she had to kiss him and say, ‘Thank you, Daddy, for earning the delicious meal.’” (59). Rosemary does not have any experience with a working family so how can she have one? She has a relationship with several odd men, including a man named Gill. After Rosemary goes on the first date with Gill, “She looked at me, tried to say something, shook her head. I sat beside her and put my arms around her. She was gasping as if someone had held her underwater” (55). Rosemary now realizes that what she came for across the continental divide is not going to happen. The family she has looked for is not there.
When Toby crosses the continental divide he is searching for a transformation of his character and a father figure. Toby was disapproving of his own character before he and his mother moved west. When Toby looks at Roy, a man who stalks his mother and is friendly to him, “I thought Roy was what I man should be. My mother must have thought so too, once” (14). Toby idolizes this stalker who does not work and must have everything his way. Toby’s wants to change his character but he ends up with an even worse character, “I was a liar. Even though I lived in a place where everyone knew who I was, I couldn’t help but try to introduce new versions of myself as my interests changed…” (133). Toby realizes his faults but he does not try to change them. He tries to create lies around himself to make it seem to others that he has changed his character, but truly he makes himself even lower in his eyes.
Revised Paragraph: Skipper’s car represents Rosemary and Toby’s new life with Dwight; it is strewn all over the place, in countless pieces. “I nodded as if I understood, and really believed that one day this mess would put itself back together again.” (118) This quote is a metaphor for how Toby’s life is a mess that needs to be put back together. When Skipper’s car is ruined, he is changed as a person, he is depressed and dejected. This is what happened to Rosemary when she married Dwight. All Toby wants is a normal family life, he is even willing to live with Dwight to make this happen. Rosemary is even miserable living with Dwight, he mimicks and mocks her when she wins, or whines when he is upset. She is willing to send Toby to Paris, where he will be adopted by her brother so he can get away from him. Dwight is the reason why Toby grew up a troubled child, that and his mother refusing to discipline him. “She’d never been able to spank me. The few times she tried I came away laughing.” (60) This quote shows how much Rosemary was affected by her abusive father and how his abusiveness didn’t rub off on her. I’m not saying that if Rosemary hit him he would have been a better kid, but every kid needs discipline or they will start to do bad things, which is exactly what happened to Toby. If Toby had a solid father figure growing up he would’ve turned out much different. Now that he has Dwight in his life Toby is seeing how Dwight acts and this affects him. But Dwight is the complete opposite of what a father should be, he is mean, unhelpful and doesn’t repsect Toby. What Toby needs the most in his life is a good father.
Body Paragraph: Rosemary has never been able to spank Toby; I believe this is partially why he does such bad stuff. I think if she had disciplined Toby as a child he wouldn’t steal or smoke. Her Dad influenced everything that she did when she was a child. “ He badgered her into smoking cigarettes so she wouldn’t eat as much, and when they went out to restaurants he made her fill up on bread.” (60) This quote shows how controlling Rosemary’s father was, and how unlike him she is. Toby has grown up without discipline in his life, and he really needs it. When Rosemary was little she was spanked all the time. She was spanked after dinner and was forced to say “Thanks for earning this meal”. She was spanked before bed and had to kiss him goodnight afterwards. “Daddy was a great believer in the rod. When my mother was still in the cradle, he slapped her for sucking her thumb.” (59) Daddy wasn’t the father Toby needs but Toby still would have been less of a troublemaker if he had grown up with Daddy. If Rosemary had spanked Toby, or if Toby had a good father to discipline him, Toby would have turned out much better.
Toby, the main character in This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff is having an identity crisis because he has had no consistent positive role models in his life. Because of this he is unsure of who he is and is always lying to try to feel sure of himself. “Being so close to so much robust identity made me feel the poverty of my own, the ludicrous aspect of my costume and props. I didn’t want to let her in. At the same time, strangely, I did.”(28). Sister James is a person who knows exactly who she is and what she is doing with her life and even though he doesn’t let her in, Toby can sense her security with herself. This makes him feel foolish because he has no idea who he is and he knows it. She is a person who, if he had let in, could have become a positive influence in his life.
Because Toby doesn’t know who he is he is always looking for a role to play. “Because I did not know who I was any image of myself, no matter how grotesque, had power over me.”(27). For example he tries to act cool with his friends Terry and Terry, who pretend to be Nazis just so they can feel that they are a part of something. When he learns he might be going to Paris, he starts acting like what he thinks someone from Paris would acts like. Like Skippers car Toby needs to work on the inside more than the outside. By playing these roles he is only changing what is on the outside, which is why he feels so empty. Toby needs to stop being everyone else and be himself so he can figure out who he is. Only then can he try to change his life into something better than what it is now.
It is working
Throughtout this book we have witessed Toby and his mother’s growing connection with one another. They have both supported and leaned on one another during the course of their journey, and who knows if they would have survived without each other. They both like to pretend that they can manage themselves, and put on this strong exterior to hide what is really inside. However it sometimes seemed like Toby was the adult and more mature one, because he would get worried about his mother and would help her through her tough moments. Like when she went on the date with Gil. Toby couldn’t sleep and said, “I sat beside her and put my arms around her. She was gasping as if someone had held her underwater. I rocked her and murmured to her. I was practiced at this and happy doing it, not because she was unhappy but because she needed me, and to be needed made me feel capable. Soothing her soothed me”(55). Not only was he worried about her this time but everytime she went out because he also said, “I slept badly that night. I always did when my mother went out, which wasn’t often these days”(55). However Rosemary isn’t the only one in need of assistence. Toby needs his mother just like any child does. He needs his mother to create the path on which he must walk. It was him who stated, “I could not, cannot, put paper to pen without having her with me. Nor swim, nor sing”(142). As you can see Toby and Rosemary have quite a stong connection with one another. In fact sometimes they don’t even have to say their thought. They can just look at each other and know what the other is thinking. No matter what kind of situation they are in, they help to pull one another along by smiling and laughing and making each other see the good sides of life.
Life with Dwight is pretty terrible, and all Toby thinks about is getting in a car and driving as far away as possible. So when he gets the opportunity to go to Paris, its as if all his silent prayers have been answered. He believed that this life with Dwight was fate and even said, “I had come to feel that all of this was fated, that I was bound to accept as my home a place I did not feel at home in, and take as my father a man who was offended by my existence and would never stop questioning my right to it”(105). At first I did believe that Toby would go to Paris, and start that new life that he had been imagining for years. However he surprised me, and stayed. It wasn’t that big of a shock, because I realized his thoughts. He would never be able to leave Rosemary like that, not after everything they’d been through. If he had gone to Paris he wouldn’t just be leaving Rosemary’s side but he would be becoming someone else’s son too and, “I was my mother’s son. I could not be anyone else’s”(142). Even though Rosemary wanted Toby to go to Paris, because she wanted a better life for him, I still believe she was happy he stayed. Not only does Toby need Rosemary but Rosemary needs Toby too!
1st: (revised)
Toby lacks power, control, and even self-control in this new life, which was supposedly going to provide him with all of these attributes. Skipper has been given a cheap car to turn into a cool ride to experience controlling this new stage of his life. While Toby gets a chance to sit in Skipper’s new car, he is familiarized with the sense of control that it brings. “Softly, so no one would hear me, I made engine noises and worked the gears, looking through the pitted windshield at the blurry outline of the trees along the road. If I didn’t look to hard I could almost believe I was moving” (125). Toby has been in many situations to only imagine the power he could be able to obtain if his life was less complex and stringent. Toby recognizes that a car could solve the lack of transformation in his life and control the slim amount of luck that has been produced by being able to leave from where he physically resides for that life he desires. “I saw myself riding shotgun beside Skipper in this fast, beautiful car…” (119). Toby continually poses literally and metaphorically as a representation of power and achieving his dreams.
2nd:
Toby and Rosemary strike equivalent poses with the .22 rifle in order to feel the power and superiority it provides that they don’t obtain in their own life. Toby’s new life isn’t giving him the option to make his own decisions, which makes him go to desperate measures to feel that warmth of being superior. “…I sometimes had to bite my lip to keep from laughing in the ecstasy of my power over them, and at their absurd and innocent belief that they were safe” (25). Positive aspects to reactions of being in charge are slim due to the person’s gain in worth and selfishness. As a sign of Toby’s sense of supremacy and adrenaline, he in-patiently releases the trigger on a squirrel, what he thought was a scared and innocent animal. Rosemary, Toby’s mother, has never had a sense of power in her life because it always has been controlled by men. While in Chinook, Rosemary attends a turkey shoot that consists of all men. Her skills won her the turkey, but she gained more than the dinner, she received the feeling of being in the spotlight and the power of defeating the males. “She struck a pose with the rifle. I waited while my mother joked around with the men, laughing, trading mild insults, flushed with cold and the pleasure of being admired” (73). When Toby and his mother see a potential way of gaining power and self-importance they fulfill the role. Even though the two protagonists continually pose as a symbol of authority and some narcissism, the people below them don’t have worries or self-respect for their actions.
--Rachel Hawes
Body Paragraph
Toby and Pearl don’t get along, but the music and singing helps bring them together. “You can’t sing harmony without leaning close together, taking cues from a nod, a sudden narrowing of the eyes, an intake of breath, and when its going well you have to smile.” Toby and Pearl have to work together to blend their voices and they have to open themselves up to each other while they sing. “…And we sang them as if to each other, smiling, face to face.” Pearl and Toby finally are starting to get along. They finally find something that they have in common, making it easier for them to get along, even if it’s just for that small amount of time with them alone in the car.
Body Paragraph 2
The music helps bring Toby and his Mother together too. “So we drove through the desert. As we drove, we sang- Irish ballads, folk songs, big-band blues.” When Toby and his mother are first leaving Florida, Toby sang because he was so happy to start over. “…While my mother eyed the temperature gauge and babied the engine. Then my throat dried up and left me croaking. I was too excited anyway. Our trail was ending.” Now, with Pearl, they sing because they are lonely and bored, and they love to sing. The music brings the person he cares about and him closer together, and it also brings the person that he doesn’t care about and him together too.
Toby was excited about moving to Chinook with his mother so he could start over and leave his unlucky and violent past of fighting and stealing behind. Even though he wanted to start over he could not change dangerous and harsh actions even though he tried. He was a good, misunderstood kid who needed a gentle, but firm hand in his life. Toby was just trying to fit in by making fun of the kids that other people made fun of. One day he took it too far while he was talking to some kids on his paper route. They were picking on a boy that they made fun of all the time, a chubby kid named Arthur who ran like a girl. It was only name calling until Arthur made an individual stab at Toby. Toby had no other choice but to match Arthur’s hurtful joke with an even better one. “…and then I called him a sissy. The smile left his face. And at that moment it came to me that although everyone referred to Arthur as a sissy, I have never heard anyone use the word in front of him”(109). Toby is returning to his violent ways just so he can fit in and get the other kids approval, and after he said sissy he couldn’t take it back. Arthur was furious. “He drew back his foot and kicked me in the stomach. The papers in his bag deadened the blow but I was stunned by the fact that he hit me at all. I saw that at his commitment to this fight was absolute” (109). Toby fought back not because he wanted to, but because he had to to fit in. Even though he wanted to start over he was not changing his ways, not yet. Toby changes when he sees Arthur all alone on his way back from his paper route. Arthur is walking his dog and says hi as he approaches Toby. Toby does not turn away or hit Arthur. Instead Toby pets the dog and laughs at a few harmless jokes and becomes friends with Arthur. Toby’s friendly actions towards Arthur are a sign of him changing.
Toby’s excitement of moving to Chinook quickly changed when he saw the true side of the foul man his mother married named Dwight. Dwight did not like Toby and Toby did not like Dwight, it was that simple. Dwight constantly came down on Toby and Toby soaked up his words until he was so use to them he did not care what Dwight said. “Dwight wasn’t wrong when he called me a lair and a thief, but these accusations did not hurt me because I did not see myself that way” (133-134). It was the fact that Toby did not respect Dwight that made Dwight’s words harmless to him. At one point Toby despised Dwight so much that he made it a priority to go against Dwight’s wishes. “All of Dwight’s complaints against me had the aim of giving me a definition of myself. They succeed, but not in the way he wished. I defined myself by opposition to him” (134). Dwight was a cruel messed up man who had a strange way of running things. For example he made Toby chunk hundreds of horse chestnuts but he never ended up using them. Dwight had no one that truly loved him; his whole family’s goal was to get away from him as fast as they could.
Chase Rosa
10-8-09
Body Paragraph Revision
“This Boy’s Life”
Toby’s reasons for visualing the men he sees as fathers is because of the constant barrage of men his mother shoves into his life. I believe Toby is looking for the right father figure. Someone who is assertive but not abusive. Someone that is nice not mean.“I imagined being adopted by different people I saw on the street. Sometimes, seeing a man in a suit come toward from a distance that blurred his features, I would prepare myself to recognize my father, and to be recognized by him”(12).“I could see him as I wanted to see him. I could give him sterling qualities and imagine good reasons, even romantic reasons, why he had taken no interest, why he had never written to me, why he seemed to forget I existed”(121). This quote is an example of someone Toby visualizes. Dwight is just out of many men who Toby wants to visualize. These two quotes I think are really strong because not only of the reason why Toby visualises the men, but Toby also reveals to us the certain qualities he would rather want his father to have, as in being nice not hurtful, and in Toby’s mind a wealthy father.
2nd Body Paragraph
“This Boys Life”
Toby’s body is filled with change and confusion. His heart is as he said, a dark forest. Where the trees and animals represent the men and bad people in his life. As he gets deeper and deeper the more trees appear and the longer they stay. This metaphor pertains to the many men Toby’s mom has brought to him. Each one has stayed longer than the next. Each one is crueler than the one before. He is confused because of his mother positive reinforcement that everything will get better but it keeps on getting worse. This screws Toby’s mind up and turns his into a thick desert. “Like anyone else, she must have have different things at the same time. The human heart is a dark forest”(143). This shows Toby also wants different things at the same time as in a new life and a better father. He just does not get them. “Whenever I was told to think about something, my mind became a desert”(142). This even screws him up even more. This is what I think, causes Toby pain. Whenever Dwight asks him a question, Toby searches for the answer, but the desert does not give him one. So Dwight beats him up.
Thesis: Rosemary’s abuse by her father affected not only her future but Toby’s future as well.
From her abuse Rosemary is unable to discipline Toby. From an early age, the only male figure in Rosemary’s life was her abusive father. Rosemary now finds herself with men that don’t really love her, but use her to relieve their anger and frustration. Her guilt of not being able to buy Toby happiness makes her willing to sacrifice her body for a materialistic item that would make Toby happy. In chapter two, Rosemary sacrifices herself in hopes that Toby will get a new bike in return. This backfires when she comes home from her date crying Toby’s selfish enough to ask “’What about the Raleigh?’” (56) To Toby, he isn’t able to help himself from caring more about the bike then his mothers well being. Toby doesn’t realize that his well being starts with his mother, and her being able to care for him. To do so Rosemary will need to put her past behind her, and the best interest of Toby before herself. Toby questioning the whereabouts of his bike shows that even though he cares about his mother, his lack of a supportive childhood and upbringing leaves him looking for something more. Toby is looking for all the things that he hasn’t had in his life so far. He is looking to feel worthy, a new identity and power, theses three things that he lacks have all been taken away by the men his mother has had relationships with. All of this ties back to his mother not being able to discipline him for fear that he will feel the same way she felt about her father. “Daddy spanked her almost every night on the theory that she must have done something wrong that day whether he knew about it or not (59).” Toby knows his mothers past and takes advantage of her inability to come through with her discipline. This leaves them both in trouble, for Toby’s vandalism could escalate even more landing him in jail, and his mother’s life could end in an abusive relationship.
Lack of guidance leaves Toby and his friends acting out, trying to be men, with no examples of how to become one. They started acting out by combing their hair a certain way, then it escalated into vandalism, “On Halloween, Taylor, Silver and I broke out some windows in the school cafeteria. The next day two police men came to our school and several bad boys with reputations were called out of class to talk to them. Nobody thought of us….(60).” Toby surrounded by two other boys just like him, lacking a father figure that they could look up to, and guidance, leave these three vulnerable boys to find their own ways through life. The difference between Taylor, Silver and Toby is that Toby knows what he is doing wrong, but can’t find the means to stop. “But for me the stealing was serious business, so much so that I dissembled its seriousness, not letting Taylor and Silver see the hold it had on me, I was a thief. …looking more innocent then an innocent person has any business looking… (61-62).” Toby knows that what he is doing is wrong but the thrill of doing something illegal and not getting caught, fuels his desire to steal and smash windows. These three young boys do know right from wrong, but the perpetual lack of discipline from their mothers keeps them coming back to vandalism.
Revised: Rosemary puts up with all of Dwight’s meanness and ignorance because she will do anything to keep this relationship together so Toby can have a better life, because this awful man is their last chance. After every rifle match, Rosemary would come home as a winner and Dwight would be a loser. In the car rides home, at first Dwight would not say anything or make a scene but the second any of them said a word or made a gesture he would lose it and yell at them. “Then Dwight snarled so viciously that my mother felt obliged to put in a soothing word. He turned on her and said that as far as he knew he was still the father of this so called family…” (132). Times like these are when Dwight cannot control his emotions and Rosemary tries to calm him down, but if he just keeps yelling and calling them names she will take the abuse because there is no point in fighting with Dwight when he has the power to kick her and Toby out of his home. So for the fate of Toby’s life, she puts up with everything Dwight throws at her. “Then, until we reached Marblemount, he railed at her for refusing to appreciate his sacrifice…” (132). The outcome of two minor events brought up how he truly feels about Rosemary and Toby, which is, he is a jerk to them because it makes him feel more important and powerful. The abuse that Dwight gives Rosemary is tough on her, but it is worth it to her if Toby can benefit from having two parent figures and a real family.
New Parageaph: The relationship between Toby and Arthur in This Boy’s Life is definitely a strange one, but Toby needs Arthur no matter what happens between them. The relationship between these two characters first meets on page 107. “His name was Arthur Gayle and he was the uncoolest boy in the sixth grade, maybe even the whole camp. Arthur was a sissy. (107).” This is how Toby feels about Arthur most of the time even when they do become friends, he still believes that he is a sissy and he talks like this behind his back to his other friends. Their relationship is unique and confusing most of the time. At first they get into a huge fist fight with one another. “His first swing caught me dead on the ear. There was an explosion inside my head… (109).” Then right after that they seem to become best friends. They seem to become best friends but we find out that Toby talks bad about Arthur behind his back, while Arthur is not and is being a loyal friend to Toby. I believe Toby is doing this because he has never really had a best friend before and he is taking advantage over Arthur who is loyal. Toby needs Arthur because even though he takes advantage of him, he really does need a friend in his life, and Arthur is that friend.
Toby’s mother, who gives up her own happiness to try to make his life “normal,” ends up destroying any sense of identity that he might have formed through her own self-deception. “My mother argued at first but Marian overwhelmed her. This time, by God, she was going to make my mother see the light. Marian didn’t have all the goods on me, but she had enough to keep her going for a while and she put her heart into it, hitting every note she knew in the song of my malfeasance… I retreated to the bedroom and waited for my mother, rehearsing answers to the charges that Marian had made against me… Answers kept coming to me in the dark, proofs of my blamelessness that I knew to be false but could not stop myself from devising.” (83) Toby believes that he is successful in fooling his mother into thinking he is trustworthy. She sees through him as only a mother can despite the pains that he takes to disguise his malfeasance, yet she refuses to acknowledge her son’s falsity and the dearth of their life together. Her infinite love for Toby induces her greatest act of neglect– one that causes him much suffering in the end. His mother deludes herself and turns a blind eye to the fact that she has foundered when presented with the single greatest gift and the culmination of her and every woman’s life: raising a child. Rosemary abandons Toby and in so doing she banishes him to the void where he must discover a path or be destroyed.
Toby’s father, through his negligence and disregard for his own son, prohibits him from forming the identity that he desires. “I also missed my father. (Dwight) meant to impugn my father for being rich and living far away and having nothing to do with me, but all these qualities, even the last, perhaps especially the last, made my father fascinating. He had the advantage always enjoyed by the inconstant parent, of not being there to be found imperfect. I could see him as I wanted to see him. I could give him sterling qualities and imagine good reasons…why he had taken no interest, why he had never written to me, why he seemed to have forgotten I existed. I made excuses for him long after I should have known better. Then, when I did know better, I resolved to put the fact of his desertion from my mind.” (121) Toby’s fascination with his father stems from his father’s lack of interest in him. Sons naturally emulate their fathers and without a father to guide them, they become utterly adrift from their surroundings. Most don’t ever feel the chasm within where their father’s love is meant to reside and they continue on with their lives, barely affected by his rejection. Some, such as Toby, sense it and after a time they begin to see its true origin. This knowledge affects Toby profoundly. He cannot comprehend it so he endeavors to ignore it. The realization of his father’s abdication of all responsibility for him causes Toby to morph into a purposeless shell, questing for an identity.
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