Tobias Wolff's Old School: Truth, Lies, Fiction, and the American Boarding School

Abstract

This essay traces the connections between Tobias Wolff's life writing, his fiction, and the life writing of Wolff's brother, Geoffrey Wolff. It examines the links within Wolff's writing and life and between the characteristics of the American boys' prep school environment and a tendency to lie about the self, and it argues that Wolff conceives of fiction paradoxically as both refuge from and extension of those instincts of deceitful self-projection.

Keywords::

• Tobias Wolff
• Geoffrey Wolff
• boarding school
• fiction
• lies
• memoir

Notes

Notes

¹ Christopher F. Armstrong's essay on the centrality of character development to the American boarding school's mission, notes that

during the second half of the nineteenth century, when so many boarding schools were founded, the founders' concerns were with the corrupting influence of cities and the need to protect childhood innocence until proper moral character could be developed in sequestered, country settings. Most of the best-known New England boarding schools were started by moralists from old New England families desirous of maintaining the prominence of their virtues and values in a society that was becoming increasingly heterogeneous and urban. (4)

² Levine's research suggests that many of these schools began accepting a wider range of students in the 1920s, just when Duke began his tour of New England boarding schools. See Levine 81–83.

³ In a 1990 interview with Bonnie Lyons and Bill Oliver, Wolff addressed why there is no “bridge” between the boy and the author: “To the extent that I start giving reasons for how this boy gets transformed into this incredibly wonderful adult who's now telling his story, the minute that bridge exists, and that explanation exists, the boy is no longer alone. He is simply in the process of becoming someone else. I think that would compromise the integrity of his experience, to come in with a comforting adult voice all the time” (3).

⁴ Christopher Stuart posits that “the self Jack sees reflected in his forged letters is a boy of intelligence and integrity, a scholar who humbly tells the truth about himself and who works hard to achieve and advance himself. And in this case, the boy, or at least the phantom of the boy, is father to the man,” that is, father to the adult Tobias Wolff, author of This Boy's Life (163).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Gooblar

David Gooblar is the author of The Major Phases of Philip Roth. He teaches literature and writing at Augustana College and Mount Mercy University.