This Boy's Life Quotes

Question 1

transformation
rosemary and tobys relationship
hope and optimism

Answer 1

“I was caught up in my mother’s freedom, her delight in her freedom, her dream of transformation”

Question 2

lies
family
influence

Answer 2

“His family had always been Jews, but I had to wait ten years before learning this”

Question 3

masculinity

identity

Answer 3

“I believed that having his name would charge me with some of the strength and competence inherent of my idea of him.”

Question 4

transformation

identity

Answer 4

“I had my own dreams of transformation…”

Question 5

identity

masculinity

Answer 5

“All the images of myself as i wished to be were images of myself armed”

Question 6

family

conformity

Answer 6

“I imagined being adopted by different people I saw on the street”

Question 7

umbrella - patriarchy

Answer 7

masculinity
the ideal man
identity
power and control
relationships

Question 8

umbrella - identity

Answer 8

abuse and neglect
relationships
power and control 
deception
escapism
optimism, resilience and hope
patriarchy

Question 9

umbrella - depiction

Answer 9

deception
identity
adversity itself
relationships
sympathy

Question 10

umbrella - relationships

Answer 10

power and control
the American Dream
identity
deception
desensitisation

Question 11

umbrella - abuse and neglect

Answer 11

identity 
power and control
escapism
relationships
convention

Question 12

umbrella - optimism

Answer 12

relationships
convention
inevitability
deception

Question 13

family
masculinity
abuse
roy

Answer 13

“He would hold no grudges as long as my mother walked the line”

Question 14

family
conventional
flaws
toby

Answer 14

“I was tempted by the idea of belonging to a conventional family, and living in a house, and having a big brother and a couple of sisters - especially is one of those sisters was Norma”

Question 15

family

Answer 15

“out failure was ordained…a real family as troubled as ours would never dream of spending time together”

Question 16

family
rosemary and tobys relationship
toby

Answer 16

“I was my mother’s son. I could not be anybody else’s”

Question 17

family
abuse
toby
daughter

Answer 17

“I hear his voice in my own when I speak to my children in anger”

Question 18

family
masculinity
abuse
toby
pearl

Answer 18

“I thought she was pathetic and so did she”

Question 19

change

Answer 19

“we were going to change our luck”

Question 20

sister james

Answer 20

“she was a woman of passion”

“no one thought of disobeying her”

Question 21

guns
masculinity
toby

Answer 21

“I needed that rifle, for itself and for the way i completed me when i help it.”

Question 22

guns

toby

Answer 22

“…I fired. The squirrel dropped straight into the road.”

Question 23

toby and rosemarys relationship
toby
comfort
reliability

Answer 23

“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 capable. Soothing her, soothed me.”

Question 24

affects of abuse
masculinity
Daddy

Answer 24

“But Daddy left some marks on her.”

Question 25

masculinity
the ideal man
submissiveness
relationships
rosemary
Daddy

Answer 25

“One of them was a strange docility almost paralysis, with men of the tyrant breed.”

Question 26

first mention
mystery
false realities
Dwight

Answer 26

“And then came Dwight.”

Question 27

abuse
Dwight
Rosemary
false predictions

Answer 27

“I knew my mother would never let herself get tangled up in a mess like that.”