Tobias English Essay

The short story Tobias involves two characters, a couple. The story mainly evolves around two themes, gender-roles and childishness. I will through this essay touch and a few subjects, the characters, the setting and the themes.

There is, as stated two characters in the story, the protagonist, Tobias and Miriam. Tobias is an unemployed guy living at his girlfriend’s house. He has an education since he was teacher: “Tobias had taught history and Spanish in high school.” He was fired from there; he’s also been fired from some other jobs, but never for ineptitude. He doesn’t go much out, he just stays home eats potato chips and plays on his guitar, “I haven’t been out all day…”
He doesn’t believe in himself, he doesn’t think he has what it takes to get a job, “I only have useless degrees” (paraphrased). His girlfriend thinks he is depressed and he doesn’t have any confidence, nothing is working out for him. Miriam is a very dominant character, she mows people aside and doesn’t think of the consequences, and she never once in the story asks Tobias for his opinion. “Get us some dinner, love.” She doesn’t consider Tobias’ opinions and she demeans him through the entire story, “you just sit around…” she knows that he doesn’t have a lot of confidence in himself, but doesn’t help him, she does the exact opposite, she brings Tobias further down.

The setting is in Miriam’s apartment, where Tobias also lives. The apartment is their private space and therefore it’s a good angle to talk about their relationship from. The setting is in an urban environment where this young modern couple lives. These young modern relationships relations and relationships come and go. “How soon can you be out of here? Is a week too fast for you?” this quote proves that modern relationships comes and goes very quickly, which is something that has changed over the