Analysis of Tobias Wolff’s The Barracks Thief

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on September 22, 2025

Recognized for his memoir This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff has written one novella, The Barracks Thief, which won the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1985. A Vietnam story set entirely in the United States, The Barracks Thief is a compelling drama that explores themes of isolation, conformity, and moral dilemmas in military life. Its protagonist is Philip Bishop, a young army recruit undergoing military training.

The novella is notable for its shifts in point of view. It begins with an omniscient narrative introducing Philip’s father, who is about to leave the family due to an extramarital affair. Wolff suggests a cause-and-effect relationship between his father’s departure and subsequent events that shape Philip’s home life and military experience. Soon, Philip becomes the point-of-view character. Crushed by his father’s abandonment and frustrated by his lack of identity, Philip enlists in the army, leaving behind his mother and brother in Washington State.

Chapters 2 to 4 are narrated in Philip’s first-person voice. After paratrooper training in Georgia, Philip is dispatched to an army base in North Carolina, where he encounters Vietnam veterans who treat new enlistees—Philip, Hubbard, and Lewis—with disdain. Although Philip seeks Hubbard’s friendship, he is wary of Lewis, a braggart with a low IQ.

During a Fourth of July assignment guarding an ammunition dump, the three face a near disaster when fireworks ignite a forest fire. Ordered to stay at their post, they nearly come to blows with local sheriffs who urge evacuation. A last-minute change in the wind prevents catastrophe, temporarily bonding the three men.

That bond is tested soon after. During a war protest, tensions rise between demonstrators and soldiers, but order is restored before violence erupts. Later, a string of thefts hits the barracks, and suspicion grows.

At this point, Wolff daringly shifts the narrative to Lewis’s perspective, using third-person omniscient narration in the present tense. Despite his bravado, Lewis is revealed to be vulnerable, inexperienced, and desperate. His thefts—committed to pay for a prostitute—eventually expose him as the thief. The shift in perspective generates unexpected empathy for a seemingly unsympathetic character.

In the final chapters, Philip resumes narration. When Lewis is caught, the sergeant emphasizes that an infantry company is like a family. But before Lewis can be discharged, he is savagely beaten by fellow soldiers. Philip, as always, watches but does not intervene—reflecting his ongoing struggle with passivity and moral responsibility.

Appearing after Wolff’s acclaimed short story collections In the Garden of the North American Martyrs and Back in the World, The Barracks Thief reflects many of his strengths: vivid characters, authentic dialogue, and precise detail. His manipulation of perspective and his exploration of male friendship, loyalty, and betrayal in the military make this novella both powerful and enduring.

SOURCES

Hornby, Nick. “Tobias Wolff.” In Contemporary American Fiction, 133–150. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.
Kendrick, Walter. “Men with Rifles,” New York Times, 2 June 1985, pp. 42–43.
Lyons, Bonnie, and Bill Oliver. “An Interview with Tobias Wolff,” Contemporary Literature 31 (1990): 1–16.
Scofield, Martin. “Winging It: Realism and Invention in the Stories of Tobias Wolff.” In Yearbook of English Studies: North American Short Stories and Short Fictions 31 (2001): 93–108.
Wolff, Tobias. The Barracks Thief. New York: Ecco Press, 1984.