Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. Fool you once, shame on me. Fool you twice, shame on you.
Shmoopers, you can say one thing about Tommy Wilhelm in Seize the Day: the man is consistent. He may make the same bad decisions over and over and over again, but hey, no one's perfect. Wilhelm's problem is that he doesn't really want to admit that his choices are his own. When the…"feathers"…hit the fan, he'd rather blame the mess on bad luck and happenstance. Unfortunately for him, no one else in his life seems willing to do the same.
Questions About Choices
- What are the choices that Wilhelm seems to regret the most in his life?
- How does Wilhelm accept responsibility for those choices? How does he carefully avoid accepting responsibility?
- What have been the long-term consequences of each of those choices? How has Wilhelm reached the place he's at today?
Chew on This
They say that to err is human, and if that's true, then Tommy Wilhelm must be super human. This guy makes decisions with about as much wisdom and foresight as there are dollars in his bank account (i.e., not a lot). Wilhelm makes bad choices, and his troubles are his fault.
Wilhelm may have made some bad decisions in his life, but he's tried to make some good ones too. Unfortunately for him, the consequences of his poor decisions outnumber the good results by a lot. With such a mess in front of him, he can't find a way to make things right.