They is, They is, They is: A Literary Analysis of Tobias Wolff’s Bullet in the Brain

A Story by Katy

This is a literary analysis of the short story "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff. When I first read this story, I was shocked at its brilliance.

“Bullet in the Brain,” written by Tobias Wolff, was first published in The New Yorker on September 21, 1995. It follows the main character, Anders, through his dying moments at a bank. When Anders arrives at the bank, two robbers infiltrate it and hold everyone inside. Anders starts to criticize how cliché the robbers are and eventually, one of the robbers gets surfeited with him and shoots Anders in the head. The main part of the story is of what his last memory was not. Anders does not remember anything major; nothing that would be most people’s happiest moments in life, such as marriage, his daughter, not even his first lover; instead, he remembers something he has long forgotten: playing a neighborhood pickup baseball game as a boy. But the part of this memory that stood out most to Anders was when a boy he had never seen before and would never see again said, “Short’s the best position they is,” (5). The boy was from Mississippi and he most likely had a colloquial way of speaking. The boy’s wording really struck a chord in Anders. Something about the words’ “pure unexpectedness and their music” really “roused” and “elated” him (5). Those words were a revelation to Anders. This story concludes with him hearing “they is, they is, they is” repeated incessantly in his head (5). Hearing “they is” unleashed a passion for language in Anders and he arguably became a literary critic because of it. That simple sentence, which would most likely be overlooked by many, had a profound effect on Anders. Whether he knew it or not, he was always subliminally searching for the ‘they is’ in every aspect of his life�"from his wife to his career.

Anders had been a harsh literary critic before he died. He had become so stringent because he was always looking for that personal touch of ‘they is’ and he had never quite found it. Throughout his entire career, he had been subconsciously searching for something unique, something that would emotionally connect the reader to the character(s). If Anders would have come across something as fresh and colloquial as “they is” in a novel or such, it would have most likely elicited the same reaction that he had had when he was dying.

The fact that Anders was cynical with the robbers had something to do with the boy saying “they is.” This relates to his life as a literary critic. One of the robbers called Anders “bright boy” and said “capiche?” to him (2, 3). He had most likely read cliché phrases like those so many times in the novels he had reviewed that he was probably skeptical of anything that followed phrases like those. He was desensitized to the world around him because all he lived in were novels. Each novel got on his nerves because he was always looking for ‘they is’ and never quite found it. Anders laughed in the face of death when the robber was pointing a gun at him because the robber had used the word, ‘capiche’ and he felt that the robber was trying to sound too gangster, just like in the Godfather movies. If the robbers had used more unique phrases that were not overused to begin with, then Anders would have taken them much more seriously. He would have realized that the robbery was in fact, a real thing, and he would have kept quiet, hoping that he did not die.

The phrase, “He did not remember when everything began to remind him of something else,” describes Anders’s persona perfectly (4). He used to be happy, but then everything got on his nerves because it all became the same generic thing, nothing new. His entire life was spent searching for something just as magical as ‘they is’ and not once had Anders found it. He would like parts of his life for a little bit, until they became the same thing. For example, it is written that Anders, “ . . . did not remember his wife, whom he had also loved before she exhausted him with her predictability,” (4). If his wife had not been so predictable, thus seeming exciting to him, he would not have grown bored with her and forgotten about her in his dying moments. It is obvious that 'they is' excited Anders in a way that not many things could: it was new and it was unique; it was something that he had never heard before and it had that boy's personal dialect in it. During his whole life, he was searching for 'they is' in everything and never finding it. That is why he did not remember anything primary.

The way that Wolff presents Anders in this story leads the reader to think of Anders as a curmudgeon. It is obvious that Anders is unhappy with his life. For example, in the second sentence in the story, he is described as “…never in the best of tempers…” (1). Someone who was really angry at his life and upset on where he was going, he would get riled up much more quickly than someone who’s just easygoing. Anders’s personality is a reflection of his frustration with his life. From the start, Anders is a dislikeable person. His persona just seems so vile. He’s impatient; he gets mad at the slightest things. The very first sentence illuminates his horrible temper: “Anders couldn’t get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper,” (1). This sentence concisely describes Anders in a negative way. By putting Anders in ‘a murderous temper,’ Wolff gave the reader a solid way of identifying him. The informal definition of murderous is: “very dangerous, difficult, or unpleasant,” (World English Dictionary). Anders seemed like the type to have a very short temper and to become unpleasant very quickly. The slightest thing, such as going to the bank a little late and getting stuck in a long line, got Anders ticked off and put him in a horrible mood. Most people do get fed up with waiting in a long line and wanting to get something over with as quickly as possible, but only a character like Anders would be put in a murderous temper.

All in all, Anders had spent his entire life searching for something unique, something bold, something new and had yet to find it. When he was dying, he remembered one thing that made him truly happy; a boy saying something completely different than what everyone else was saying. That simple phrase, “short’s the best position they is,” changed Anders’s life. He realized that there was certain uniqueness to language and he spent his whole career looking for it and had never found it. He died unhappy because everything was the same to him; nothing new, just same old, same old.