Tobias Wolff's Bullet In The Brain

When reading Bullet in the Brain, I found myself very intrigued and asking myself many questions as the story progressed up until the very end. The way Tobias Wolff wrote the story, he did not give much background on the main character, Anders, which kept you guessing on why Anders was so negative and responded to the situation he was in the way that he did. By doing this, it made it hard as a reader to make a clear decision of how to feel about what happened to Anders at the end. Leaving it up to the imagination of the readers to write in the details of Anders’ life, potentially leaves him to be set up to be perceived as something he is not. Anders is thought of as a jerk by the other characters in the story. This happens to be the case because
Such as, what happened in Anders life that left him to be such a bitter and cold-hearted person? When Anders was dying, the author spent three paragraphs in somewhat of an attempt to give an insight on his personal life, but this does not give the readers a clear example of who he is. Unfortunately, even with these details, it still leads to readers ultimately judging him and having opinions of Anders that he is a jerk and that he deserved to die. This is unsettling personally because everyone has a reason for why they are the way they are. People do not just wake up one day hating the world, something very traumatic has had to happen for them to be this way. The readers were given short snippets of things that happened in his life such as him falling out of love with his wife and his rough relationship with his daughter. Although, it is still evident that something else had an effect on him to have such a sense of lack of compassion. It is heartbreaking that this happens to people, but unfortunately, this it is a part of life. Towards, the end of the story there is a glimpse, right before Anders dies, of one of the last times he remembers being genuinely happy and having a love for life. The memory is of him as a child and playing baseball in a field with a couple friends. One of the boys uses the phrase “they is” in their conversation, and these two words resonated with Anders throughout his life and brought him a sense of comfort and