 Therefore, she gets no support from her husband in her endeavor to deviate from social norms.  Finally, the narrator connects Edna’s awakening to her act of inhabiting a separate house:
               The narrator previously makes an overt reference to the “law of society” (29), for something as trivial as how to wear one’s hair.  Imagine, then the extent of such “law.”  Edna creates for herself the experience of a subsidized woman living alone in her community.  She is aware that she loses status socially, but this only teaches her that social loss gives her inner peace.  She realizes that abandoning responsibility makes her feel alive.  For the first time in her life, she views existence as something that can be glimpsed from beyond the notions of others, and recognizes her whole reality as merely a construct of convention.  She is awake because she no longer derives purpose from “opinion,” and thus she becomes an anomaly—someone finding fulfillment in social failure.  How, then, can she transcend her social reality?  What identity might bring her peace of mind?  Her friend Riesz seems to know more than the reader, as she demonstrates with an astute prediction about Edna’s ability to assume a similarly openly defiant role.  Edna’s attitude about work is a major clue about her state of mind.  She is not working to have an identity in society or to increase her social status, as she could in an endeavor to successfully rebel against the dominant view of women.  Instead she is “devoid of ambition…[S]triving not toward accomplishment, she drew satisfaction from the work in itself” (96).  Overall, we are to take the message that the only way Edna is willing to live is completely in her own reality.
        The title of Wolff’s book is a kind of pun which deliberately calls attention to a magazine for boy scouts called “Boy’s Life.”  While the literal meaning of the title clearly designates the novel as the memoir of a boy, the reference to the magazine both in the title and as an element of the story is a representation of identity, one that surrounds the first socially esteemed group Toby is inspired to join.  Devotion to participating in and deriving character from the scout activities and all the ethical principles taught by the organization appears to the boy to be the first station in society both prestigious and realistically accessible.  The magazine is targeted for the scouts, the parents, the activity leaders, and anyone else interested.  It presents a discourse of ideas and values which extend far beyond scouting practice, permeating each aspect of life, from personal to global.  We understand that the advertisements and images are psychologically geared to both influence readers and address their mentality.  Even the manual given to the scouts, “Handbook for Boys,” integrates ideology into its system for achievement and advancement.  Toby is drawn to more than the uniform he might physically and mentally wear; he is enticed by all the scout notions of character and strength that become an identity. 