The Secret Garden And Neil Gaiman's

"These writers explore both the social roles that confine them and the bodies that represent the confinement". In light of this quotation, compare how the writers explore gender.

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.

Barbara Kingsolver’s modern romance, The Bean Trees, tells the story of a young woman named Taylor Greer. Taylor is born in a small rural town and “gets away” so she can do bigger and better things. While driving cross-country, a woman leaves her a small child. Taylor raises names and raises this child, Turtle. She moves in with another single mom and works for Mattie, a woman who smuggles refugees. Taylor has multiple moments of lost innocence as she learns the true evils of the world, and she uses this to grow into a stronger person. In her novel, The Bean Trees, Kingsolver juxtaposes characters and settings that uphold gender stereotypes and that challenge them in order to convey the notion that those who break traditional gender roles

The difference between men and women is a very controversial issue, while there are obviously physical differences; the problem is how the genders are treated. It is stereotypically thought that the men do the labor work and make all the money, while the women stay in the house, cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children. While this stereotype does not exist as much in the 21st century, it was very prevalent in the 1900s. By using many different literary tools such as character development, symbolism, and setting, Alice Munro’s Boys and Girls and John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums challenge this controversial topic of the treatment of women versus men in the 1900s.

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.

“In these two books, we have the story of a young man coming of age and finding success in the world and the story of a young woman coming of age and failing to do so. In either book, what gender roles prevailed?”

The different roles women and men characters play in the stories are also largely influenced by the society’s views. Women are portrayed

Question 3: To what extent do male and female literary characters accurately reflect the role of men and women in society?

As a result of the abuse female characters have faced, it has become an objective for authors to prevent this. There have been clear strides recently, putting women as the protagonists, and not in a manner that has them dealing with persecution. The amount of strong, female characters is a large stride in the right direction to end the conflict regarding women’s roles in literature. However, this sudden influx of women in literature may lead to the reversal of the issue; the absence or abuse of men. While certainly literary equality is the end goal, to flip the issue would be just as bad and lead to sexism on the opposite spectrum. To truly mend the rift between genders, there must be no discrimination, the idea that an author is trying to use sexist undertones by not writing the lead as a female should not have to be an idea that readers think about when analyzing modern books. While even still there are issues of gender inequality in literature, there must be moderation from both ends for a resolution to be possible. The only way for equality to be achieved is with the absence of sexist ideals from all

Reading novels is an experience unlike any other. With the crack of a new book, the reader is transported into the pages, into a new land, ready to take on the role of protagonist. Each little girl has the chance to be a pirate-fighting hero, each little boy able to become the doting husband. If that sentence sounds strange, it is because society has socialized individuals to gender any and all activities, reading included. Elizabeth Segel drives this point home in her article “As the Twig is Bent… Gender and Childhood Reading,” which gives an in-depth analysis of gender in children’s book, and the implications it has for readers.

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

The Graveyard Book written by Neil Gaiman is a fictional book published in 2008. The setting in the beginning of the story is in a house in the middle of the night, but it very quickly transitions to a graveyard. Towards the end, the setting is all throughout the town, in which the house and graveyard are located. This book is written in the third person point of view. Having a third person point of view helps the author tell the story the way he wants to by not showing an emotional connection with the protagonist but still making the reader develop positive emotions toward the protagonist.

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.

Majority of the ancient societies portrayed similarities in the presentation of women and girls. In other words, women and girls in the traditional communities were given similar roles and were regarded as the inferior members of the society. Men were viewed as members of the superior gender and due to this; they were given the primary responsibilities in the society and were also regarded as the heads of the family and the entire community. In most cases, women took the roles and responsibilities of housewives, caretakers, nurturers, reproducers, and mothers while men were given the responsibility of managing the society. The classification of diverse roles for women and men was destructive on the side of the females as men sought to dominate them, take advantage of them and even oppress them and this resulted in the case of gender imbalance and inequality. It is clear that men were insensitive about this division and hence scholars rose to represent the fate of women through writing. The Tale of Kieu by Nguyen and the Separate Ways by Chiyo portray women as oppressed, voiceless and members of an inferior gender.

There is no doubt that certain books children read are made especially for boys or for girls. Like any developmental form of entertainment, from toys to movies, children's books are often littered with hints that dictate whether they were originally meant for male or female enjoyment. Sometimes these hints can be as simple as the specific gender of the main characters, for example Carolyn Keene's Nancy Drew series calls for a female audience while the extremely similar yet sexually opposite Hardy Boys mysteries fall into the hands of boys, yet other times more important factors decide who the book will best be suited for. Gary Paulsen's Hatchet and Katherine Patersons's The Great Gilly Hopkins are books for a boy and a