Essay Questions

Why is Tom bullied for being different?

Tom is a young man who doesn't fit in with his classmates - who enjoy sports, girls, and being part of a culture that is full of roughhousing and in which they look to Bill, their coach, as an idol. Tom doesn't connect with their ideas about what it is to be a man. Instead he reads George Bernard Shaw and enjoys the company of Bill's wife Laura. Tom is said to not be masculine because of this and is rejected by the group of boys because they see him as different. The reality is that Tom is not less masculine because he is different, though this fact is only understood by Al and Laura.

Why does Tom attempt to take his own life?

Tom has been pushed and prodded for long enough and to prove he is a man he goes to a local prostitute in order to have sex for the first time and enter manhood. But when he goes he can't do it. Eventually, he becomes so overwhelmed with despair that he doesn't want to live as it would be a continual life of being mocked. His attempt thankfully doesn't end in his death.

Why does Laura leave her husband?

Laura has fallen in love with Tom while she attempted to have give him sympathy for how he was being treated. He eventually sleeps with Laura before leaving school and then writes a book years later about his experience there and with Laura. He returns to find that Laura has left Bill and understands that she's done so because she is in love with Tom, a young man that is very much like her husband before Bill (who was killed in World War II) who was sensitive and nurturing.