Thomas Wolfe- His Life Experiances and how they influenced him to become a writer .
Thomas Wolfe was an enormously popular American novelist during the middle of this 20th Century. Wolfe's childhood consisted of him watching many of his family members fail miserably in life, making the best of what they had and it was that which gave him the push he needed to achieve his dream of becoming a writer and tell the stories of which he had witnessed in his own hometown of Ashville, North Carolina. He felt he would have much to write about especially since he had a close relationship with his mother and older brother Benjamin. Wolfe lived most of his adult life in New York, making periodical visits to Europe. Wolfe would draw much of the inspiration for his fiction not only from his native western North Carolina but also from his own life experiences and those of his family and friends (Field 23). His opulent language and unique literary style have elevated his life to legendary status through his numerous autobiographical novels. Thomas Wolfe was an enormously popular novelist during the middle of this century. His highly literary and sentimental style has dated him somewhat, and he is not as often read now as he was during his own time. His intensely introspective works were highly valued by the generation that came of age in middle decades of the century, and it was Thomas Wolfe's books that inspired a new generation of American writers (Champion 57).
People, places and situations from Wolfe's life inevitably found their way into his fiction. At the age of five, he was enrolled in Asheville's Orange Street Public School. By 1908, his .
.
mother and father had taken up separate residences, and Wolfe began to live with the former in her boarding house, an arrangement that provided him with ample future literary material. In 1912, he transferred to North State Fitting School, a private institution, the owners of which also became pickings for his literary imagination.