“This Boy’s Life” by Tobias Wolff and “Territorial Behavior” by Desmond Morris Essay

Human behavior is influenced by various factors like family connections and environment. These factors are responsible for shaping the behavioral pattern according to the circumstances and experiences. Peoples’ reactions to life depends heavily on his experiences and situations, making it unpredictable. This quality of human behavior is presented in the story, ‘This Boy’s Life,’ by Tobias Wolff. Desmond Morris’s essay, ‘Territorial Behavior’ explains the importance of various kinds of ‘owned space’ in shaping human behavior. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the two works and compare how the similar themes have been conveyed by Wolff and Morris. ‘This Boy’s Life’ is an autobiographical piece of work by Wolff. He narrates his life and bad experiences during childhood. The essay ‘Territorial Behavior,’ speaks about the different levels of territories built by humans to remain safe and happy in their ‘owned’ spaces.

The protagonist in the story ‘This Boy’s Life’ is Toby Jack Wolff, or simply Jack as he changes his name. The boy lives with his mother Rosemary, who is separated from her husband. Her childhood experiences of abuses, makes her live with aggressive and violent people. In order to escape from a particularly cruel man, they go to Florida in search of a better and richer future. They fail in it and therefore settle in Seattle with Dwight, who becomes Jack’s step-father. Dwight behaves cruelly to Jack and in his desperation, Jack tells lies and lives in his own fantasies. He attempts to run away from his step-father, but none works out. He believes his own lies and goes the wrong way. He gets into trouble in school, because of his notorious friends and company. A little after he is admitted to an esteemed boarding school, Jack gets expelled from there for misconduct and later on joins the army.

In the essay ‘Territorial Behavior,’ the author explains the importance human beings give to their ‘owned’ spaces. In order to stop the encroachment by other people, people develop three levels of territories and they are tribal, family and personal. People do not often fight to regain their lost spaces, but they try to keep it to themselves as far as possible. On finding it impossible to stop foreign encroachments, people sometimes act violently and aggressively to such situations. He explains how people, who are submissive by nature, turn to violence once they are on the verge of losing their ‘owned’ spaces.

The story narrates the consequences of child abuse not only on Jack but also on his mother. Rosemary had a very cruel father, and he showed his violence on his daughter, when she was a small. This has had effect on her life. Rosemary tends to live with men who believe in being violent to demonstrate their power and control over women. As a result, she ended up with men who were harsh on her and her son. Her decisions were most of the time wrong. Due to her pathetic past, she never reprimands Jack for anything. She is conscious enough to provide a better life to her son, unlike the one she had. It is with this thought that she marries Dwight, but it turns out to be a wrong decision again. She indirectly becomes a reason for Jack’s suffering and sad life. Rosemary’s troubles as a child, made her not capable of taking the right decisions in life.

Jack captures the sympathy of the readers what with all the difficulties he faces at such an early age. Jack, initially was a good and loving boy, who never lost his temper with anyone. He loved his mother and consoled her in all her bad times. He wishes to provide better and happier living conditions to his mother. After Jack goes to Chinook, Dwight, who was earlier harmless, changes a lot and abuses Jack. He accuses Jack of even imaginary crimes and shouts at him. He makes the boy do a lot of work, only to display his authority over him. Dwight takes away Jack’s earnings from delivering newspapers. As a result, Jack becomes desperate. He wishes to run away from the man, to live safely elsewhere. Jack becomes emotionally upset and gradually begins to develop fantasies. He creates his own world of imaginary things, which he believes are true. He conveniently avoids his troubling mind and its thoughts by imagining. He lies to everyone and believes it to be true. He thinks of himself as highly talented and brilliant. In his attempts to escape from the house, he writes applications to boarding schools, praising himself with lies. He ends up in the wrong gangs of friends, and get into trouble with them in his school. He makes two attempts to run away, but he fails in both attempts, which makes him even more depressed. To his luck, one of the boarding schools accept him, and before he joins it, he stays at the Bolgers’ where he gets caught while trying to steal gasoline from a nearby farm. Though he regrets it, he does not apologize to them. Sometime after he is admitted to the school, the authorities expel him because he fails to maintain good grades. Finally, he joins the army.

The three levels of territories explained in the essay are tribal, family and personal. Morris says that people try as hard as they can to avoid fighting for their ‘owned’ spaces. However, occasionally, they get so irritated that even the most submissive turn violent and aggressive to the intruders. He discusses how environment influences one’s behavior. People tend to build clubs, associations and small separate groups called the tribal territories, in order to feel familiar with everyone in it. Society is huge and all its inhabitants will not be familiar ones. Creating tribal territories make people feel safer and happier. Any outsider will be considered as different by its members. Similarly, all families restrict their guests to the living room. The other rooms in the house are part of the family’s territory and the guests encroaching on it, will not be agreeable to the family members. Lastly, the personal territories which are constructed by the self. In unavoidable situations, people avoid even looking at each other as the personal territory gets attacked. People try to remain silent when others encroach on their spaces. However, if it becomes uncontrollable, they become violent and behave in ways peculiar and unnatural of them. The theme in the story is a very similar one. Through Jack’s and Rosemary’s lives, Wolff explains how adverse family connections and environment can harm one’s life drastically.

Jack’s freedom is lost when Dwight physically and emotionally inflicts harm on the boy. Morris says, “but when we relinquish our Personal Space in this way, we adopt certain special techniques. In essence, what we do is to convert these other bodies into “nonpersons.” We studiously ignore them, and they us.” (Desmond). This is what happens with Jack when Dwight disturbs his personal space. He finds it difficult to face the difficulties and it affects his school life too. This greatly disturbs his mind and he thinks it better to ignore the truths or life realities. He creates a world of fantasy where he is talented, smart and successful boy. He imagines it and believes it to be true. He forges letters in the name of his teachers to various boarding schools as part of application for admission.

Morris explains that in an over-crowded lift, people avoid looking at each other. Instead they look either look at the ceiling or at the floor. Similarly, Jack refuses to look at the truths and instead makes imaginations and accepts only them in his world. Jack, who hasn’t received proper love and care from his home, develops a liking for a girl called Annette. In his imagination, he sees himself in an accident. He hopes to be taken care of at least Annette and that is the reason for such a weird imagination. Morris also says that people try to avoid social interactions as far as possible when in large crowds. In other words, they become anti-social. The bad gangs in which he gets involved is due to this. His problems create an aversion in his mind about everything in the society and he resorts to small crimes along with his friends. He begins to lie to everyone, which creates a bad impression about him in the minds of others.

Similarly, what the essay deals with is the influence of family connections and environment in shaping human behavior and this can be seen from the character of Rosemary. She is influenced by her father’s cruel behavior. The experiences in her childhood influenced her in selecting her life partners too. She shows interest in men who display brutal character to establish their authority in family. That is exactly where she loses her life. Her wrong decisions gave her and her son bad times in life. Rosemary’s poor relationship with her family ended up in her failure in life. Likewise, Jack’s poor connections with his family, including his mother, father and step-father resulted in more troubles in his life.

Morris maintains that, “Insulted at the heart of my own territory, I may easily explode into battle–either symbolic or real–with a result that may be damaging to both of us.” (Desmond). Even people who are otherwise silent and patient, react violently when their territories are attacked by someone else. This is what happens in the case of Jack. Jack was a boy who showed enough maturity in all the matters in life. He tries to run away from the house which is his way of reacting to it since he is small, though when he fails in it, he applies to various boarding schools in the hope of leaving the house for education. Jack’s fantasies and imaginations indirectly show how much Dwight and his policies troubled him. Even his act of stealing gasoline when at the Bolgers’ is an example for this. He, who was initially a well-behaved kid, becomes a thief with that incident. Though he feels bad about it, he finds it unable to make an apology to Mr. Bolger’s neighbors. The change that his experiences have brought about is evident in this incident. Jack also performs poorly at his new boarding school, thereby getting expelled from there. When he fails in academics, his dream of providing happier living conditions to his mother too shatters. Apart from his own experiences, he also witnesses Mr. Bolger’s and his father’s arrests. This adds to his bad experiences, and at the end of the story, he joins the army.

To conclude, ‘This Boy’s Life’ depicts the pitiable life of Jack, who suffers more than for his age, which shapes his behavior for the worse and affects his life, including his education terribly. The essay, ‘Territorial Behavior’ speaks about the three levels at which people react to others’ encroachment of their ‘owned’ spaces. The writer explains his arguments with enough evidence and examples. An analysis and comparison of the two works, makes it clear that the themes in the two works are very similar. Both explain about how family connections and the environment influence and shape human behavior. The essay gives various statements and the story provides ample examples for it.

Business Works Cited

Desmond Morris: Territorial Behavior. 2009. Web.