Boys And Girls By Alice Munro

In Alice Munro short story “Boys and Girls” is about a young girl confused in life about herself maturing into a young women that takes place on a fox farm in Jubilee, Ontario, Canada with her parents and her younger brother. The character of the young girl that is not specified by a name in the story is struggling with the roles that are expected by her peers of a young women in the 1940’s. This young girl has been helping her father on the fox farm for many years in which brought so much of a joy in her life. As she gets older, as well and as her younger brother Laird grows older, she is starting to realize that her younger brother will be soon be taking over the roles and responsibility of taking care of the animals. Then her mother and grandmother points out the anticipations of her to start acting more like how a young women of her age should present themselves and this has great emotional effects on her, and at the end of the story she shows a final act of disobedience against her father, but it only shows the thing she resist the most, her maturing into a young women and becoming her own person.

In Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls,” our narrator is a young farm girl on the verge of puberty who is learning what it means to be a “girl.” The story shows the differing gender roles of boys and girls – specifically that women are the weaker, more emotional sex – by showing how the adults of the story expect the children to grow into their respective roles as a girl and a boy, and how the children grow up and ultimately begin to fulfill these roles, making the transition from being “children” to being “young adults.”

When we are adolescents we see the world through our parents' eyes.  We struggle to define ourselves within their world, or to even break away from their world.  Often, the birth of our "self" is defined in a moment of truth or a moment of heightened self-awareness that is the culmination of a group of events or the result of a life crisis or struggle.  In literature we refer to this birth of "self" as an epiphany.  Alice Munro writes in "Boys and Girls" about her own battle to define herself.  She is torn between the "inside" world of her mother and the "outside" world of her father.  In the beginning her father's world prevails, but by the finale, her mother's world invades her

Equality between men and women is not always accepted in society. In the previous era, men were seen as the person who had the rights to rule over others and who could work outside the home. But the woman was seen only as a woman from home, she had the responsibility of taking care of the children, doing all household chores and her opinion was never considered. In Alice Munro story “Boys and Girls “, the narrator of the story is a girl who lives on a fox farm with her parents and a younger brother but her character is seen between the conflict with society and her desires because the difference of role that plays each genre.

In the book “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls, Jeanette’s life has gone through many ups and down’s, all the way from her childhood to her adulthood. As Jeanette’s growing up she sees her Parent’s hopes and dreams slowly starting to elude away into reality. From the start of the book Jeanette’s parents, Rex and Rosemary have strong hopes of being rich from mining and sifting up gold in the dessert, through rexes “new Invention’s” to help detect the gold. But as time tells, Jeannette’s feelings and faith in her parents start to diminish away. Jeannette also starts to realize that her father is causing the problem. Towards the end of the story, Jeannette says to her mom, “Mom, you have to leave dad” (wells 188), and Jeanette’s mom is astonished of what she had said and asks why she suggested that, and Jeannette simply states that “He will bring all of us down” suggesting that they need to be on welfare. When Brian and Lori Begin digging the foundation for the glass castle that Rex had designed and promised them they were going to make, the idea quickly diminished into a fantasy once the hole started to fill with old rusty beer cans.

In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls,” there is a time line in a young girl’s life when she leaves childhood and its freedoms behind to become a woman. The story depicts hardships in which the protagonist and her younger brother, Laird, experience in order to find their own rite of passage. The main character, who is nameless, faces difficulties and implications on her way to womanhood because of gender stereotyping. Initially, she tries to prevent her initiation into womanhood by resisting her parent’s efforts to make her more “lady-like”. The story ends with the girl socially positioned and accepted as a girl, which she accepts with some unease.

Set against the backdrop of the Californian Gold Rush of the 1850s, The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt follows the lives of two brothers, Eli and Charlie Sisters. The Sisters Brothers tells the story of these infamous assassins who are on a journey to San Francisco to kill a man named Hermann Kermit Warm. Warm appears to be a subtle man, who is accused of stealing from their boss, a formidable figured named the Commodore. As the brothers continue on with their journey, they come across many people from all walks of life: a weeping man, gold-digging prospectors, a young-naïve boy, and a dentist. Although the brothers don’t realize it, these individuals help the brothers perceive the world in a completely different way. Not to mention, they change the way the novel is bestowed. The brothers eventually end up at their final destination in San Francisco from Oregon City, where they realize that their adventure has actually just begun. After several eye-opening incidents, the brothers begin to question their jobs, and the true meaning of their lives.

In Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls”, the author explains the transition from being a tomboy girl to becoming a woman. The protagonist is

In Alice Munro’s short story, Boys and Girls, the underlying theme displayed throughout the entirety of the story is conforming and defying to society’s gender expectations. This is shown through the literary device, symbolism. Symbolism is seen through Flora the horse and the protagonist’s mother.

Harvey Fierson once said,“never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accepts no one’s definition of your life, but define it yourself.” Throughout life many people struggle to find who they are or the person they want the world to see. One can say this dilemma stems from the human need of belongingness, as demonstrated in Maslow 's hierarchy of needs. “Day of the Butterfly” by Alice Munro depicts this idea through the relationship, that is formed between the main characters Helen and Myra. Helen can be viewed as a dynamic and round character because her personality shifted a lot throughout the story. The reader was also allowed to see her battle with “self” from the beginning to end of the narrative. Myra on the other hand, would be a foil or static character. This is due to the fact that Myra remained constant and she was the reason behind Helen’s actions and thoughts. However for this analysis we will focus solely on Helen and how her character was affected and evolved. She was a very weak-minded, submissive, and scared individual, who later exhibit qualities of bravery. At the end we can see how she began to step into who she was as an individual. Now we will look at how Helen was affected mentally, socially and emotionally.

The narrative voice is intriguing when choosing a literacy technique when applied to Alice Munro 's “Boys and Girls” and Jamaica Kincaid 's “Girl” because it highlights the significance of women 's role during the 1960 's. The story of Boys and Girls is in third person narration describing an eleven- year old girl. This story was published in 1968, a time when the second wave of feminism movement occurred. This story gives information about adult gender roles. The setting of the story is in Canada during the winter. The narrator is living in a fox- breeding farm which correlates to the North American culture in the 1960 's. In the 1960 's, women were stereotyped as happy wives and mothers. In contrast, the society believed that unmarried

“Boys and Girls” is a short story, by Alice Munro, which illustrates a tremendous growing period into womanhood, for a young girl living on a fox farm in Canada, post World War II. The young girl slowly comes to discover her ability to control her destiny and her influences on the world. The events that took place over the course of the story helped in many ways to shape her future. From these events one can map the Protagonist’s future. The events that were drawn within the story provided the Protagonist with a foundation to become an admirable woman.

There was a time when society did not consider men and women as equal. Men were considered as the superior human being and the dominant figures of authority in the house while the woman had to be a subservient. Alice Munro uses some interesting details in “Boys and Girls” to hold the readers captive. She takes us on a journey in an era where the male child was deemed more important than the female child. “Boys and Girls is a story about a girl’s struggle in accepting the role society has forced upon her in such a vivid manner that it draws the reader to want to know what happens next. In “Telling Tails,” by Tim O’Brien, he illustrates what a good story should be by using story examples. O’Brien believes that “Boys and Girls” is good story because the author uses a well-imagined plot, striking and dramatic elements, and the ability to reach deep into the heart of readers.

Society tries to place many rules upon an individual as to what is acceptable and what is not . One must decide for themselves whether to give in to these pressures and conform to society’s projected image, or rather to resist and maintain their own desired self image. In the story “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro, Munro suggests that this conflict is internal and external and a persons experiences in life will determine which of these forces will conquer. In terms of the unnamed protagonist’s experiences in the story, it becomes clear just how strong the pressure of society to conform really is, as it overcomes and replaces the girl’s self image.

Early this morning, 1 January 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last human being to be born on earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of Buenos Aires, aged twenty-five years, two months and twelve days.