This Boy's Life Character Analysis Essay Sample

In the book This Boy's Life Toby struggles with his identity, and has many disguises that help him get through tough times. He is often told by the many toxic father figures in his life that he is not man enough, this causes Toby to start believing what they are saying. He creates an unhealthy vision of what he should be and what he deserves. This causes him to lie and manipulate people in his life that  support him. Toby turns into many different people in This Boy's Life to please other people and himself.

In a later chapter Toby decides to call Geoffrey his older brother who was very privileged, and given many opportunities that Toby never had access to. Toby begins to prove to Geoffrey and himself that even without the extra help he was able to be successful, but with lies that were very far from the truth such as “I told him I was getting straight A’s” and that Toby was a star swimmer. Eventually this fake version of Toby ended up getting into boarding school and got to meet Mr. Howard, who used Tobys obnoxious lies against him. Toby began to believe the lies himself, he believed that he was worthy of going to the boarding schools, that he deserved to be this perfect person, he found himself stuck between fantasy and reality. 

Toby doesn’t only change himself based on other people's opinions and assumptions, he changes himself based on who he wants to be. When Toby moved from Utah from Florida he decided to change his name to Jack, after Jack Landon. Jack was a stronger, more masculine name, Toby says “I believed having his name would charge me with some of the strength and competence inherent in my idea of him” His mother and father don’t approve of his name change, but Toby doesn’t care it makes him feel better about himself. It makes him feel confident, now that he changed his name he could be a completely new person that was worthy of being a leader, that was immune to getting in trouble and who was a real man. Jack was a person with power, Toby was not. 

Even towards the end of the book Toby never sees himself as he really is, he is still stuck in between two different versions of himself.  The star swimmer who gets straight A’s, who has a rich father and went to a boarding school, and the Toby that gets terrible grades, has a mother who doesn’t have a lot of money and marries terrible men, the Toby who manipulates and lies to people who support him. These two different disguises are his protection, a way to shield himself from not knowing who he is and where he belongs, and a way to not let himself and other people down.