Alex Messick
Ms. Sinnott
English 10, Block A
November 3, 2010
Old School
Individualistic is defined as a person who shows independence and or individuality in his/her identity and behaviors. However, how individualistic can a person be before they realize that they have pushed everybody away? Being more individualistic is a way to escape the responsibility to take care and love for another person; it can also be good for the person to learn what it means to be independent and not always really on other people for everything. This is very important in Tobias Wolff’s novel Old School because our narrator has gone through some times that put him into a position of which he has to choose to have more of an individualistic identity. Individualistic exists in the novel to shows how the influence of the individualistic identities of the authors visits is having an effect on the narrator and the other boys that go to that school. In the novel Old School, by Tobias Wolff, Robert Frost and Ayn Rand are used to influence the narrator and help him create identities that push them to be more individualistic.
Robert Frost’s influences are being used to help create the boys individualistic identities. When Robert Frost spoke to George he said “Mr. Frost told me I was wasting my time in school. He said I should go to Kamchatka; Or Brazil.” (59) What Frost was trying to explain or get George to think about why was he in school and why did he accept the lifestyle that was set before him? Why were all these boys forsaking their lives to just go to school? Frost was explaining that the boys needed to get out and live freely to create their own individualistic identities. He had wanted them to go live then write; because once the people had lived their lives then they can write great novels, because they will have so much to write about. Our narrator thought to himself “what was it about Kamchatka that a young writer should forsake his schooling to go there?” (60) This just shows that Frost wants the boys to go out into society and experience all the wonderful opportunities that could shape and mold their individual identities. He was trying to get the George and the other boy’s to understand why they would forsake a life time of opportunities that they could enjoy and never regret, then to regret that they had wasted their life doing something that they think they like, but the boy’s are thinking why would they forsake a one in a life time opportunity to get a high education and become some of the best writers to just go out into society and become more individualistic. So we see that Frost and the boy’s have different perspective on life and its meaning of having individualistic identities. All of this could dramatically change the individualistic identity of the narrator.
The Essay on This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff
ii. ‘This Boy’s Life is not only about hardship; it is also about determination and resourcefulness.’ Discuss. Wolff’s memoir This Boy’s Life positions its readers to question the ability of Tobias and his mother to ‘change [their] luck’. In the midst of the post-war conservative backlash the pair are caged by societal norms that prevent them from acheiving their ‘dreams of transformation.’ ...
Ayn Rand’s influence is used to help facilitate the boy’s understanding that being too individualistic is not a good thing. When our narrator had tried to read the Ayn Rand’s things again he could not, because he said “… read Ayn Rand’s sentences without hearing her voice. And hearing her voice, I saw her face… her disgust had power.”(91) Our narrator experiences that being like Ayn Rand individualistic identity has negative influences that he should watch out for. Those things would be like looking down at people who they think is inferior to the person. In this case we see that Ayn is in disgust of how innocent and inferior our narrator is to her. She thinks she acts more like a man than he will ever become. In the novel the readers experience that the narrator at one point became like Ayn Rand and judge another person at how he can lower himself to be a slave for someone else. Then he had realized that his individualistic identity was becoming like Ayn Rand. He was afraid that becoming like Ayn individualistic identity will make people to look at him in a different perspective and think of him as a jerk (like Ayn Rand).
The Term Paper on Ayn Rand-The Fountainhead
... between the covers of, The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand's philosophical revolution of Individualistic power, is her solution to society's ... presumably the black and the white. The identity of the black is usually mark with ... work as a service to the people, for the people. He suppresses the outcries of his ... lacks the essential of self respect. A person without self respect lives in insecurity, holding ...
He does not want to be judge like Ayn Rand was judge as acting superior to others when actually Ayn Rand is just as equal as us. Her life is not worth more than any other life and if a person actually thinks that then their ego is way too high for the personality and identity. Ayn Rand’s individualistic identity is so powerful that when her disgust has power she must have nobody to love, because regular people would not despise people so much for their flaws and mistakes as much as Ayn Rand does. She thinks that society has to owe her something and that everything that she has done was not given to her she had to work for it since she was little. She will not give back to the community that has brought her in.
In conclusion, in the novel Old School, by Tobias Wolff, Robert Frost and Ayn Rand are used to influence the boys and help them shape and mold their new individualistic identities. The identities of the authors have such an influence to show how being individualistic is good and bad. The good sides are that the person changes to become more independent and that he/she will start making choices for themselves. The bad sides are that the person will become to individualistic that they will start acting and becoming like Ayn Rand. It is a good thing that people will find their individualistic identities one day that will make them who they really are. No more people telling them what to choose or what not to choose. It will come down to the person who is changing to take control.
Works Cited
Wolff, Tobias. Old School. New York: Random House Inc.,, 2003. Print.
