Boys and Girls

             In "Boys and Girls," the girl is in a constant struggle between trying to live in an environment that makes her feel content about herself, and her family's perspective of how she should reside on the basis of what is proper and right in their society. The girl believes that the work her mother and her father have chosen to do is what they have achieved and has been out of their own free will. She finds it very difficult to understand why her mother would choose such a dull and tedious lifestyle. What's more is that the girl desperately wants to reason that she will be able to choose her own lifestyle of managing the animals on the farm; however, her family and friends are quite aware of the standard of living the girl will inevitably have to accommodate to because of her gender. The stereotypical images of how men and women are supposed to behave in a society can easily become an obstacle in a person's individual freedom and inhibit them in living the way they want to, and this actuality is quite evident in "Boys and Girls."
             In this story the girl's mother, who is desperately trying to influence the girl to labor inside the home, announces to the father that he will get "real help" when Laird, their son, gets a little older. This statement implies to the girl that she is not as useful as a boy and will never be as competent as her opposite sex, despite her efforts. In fact, the girl was very helpful and played a pivotal role in the family by providing water for the "foxes...twice a day" by filling "the drum at the pump and (trundling) it down through the barnyard to the pens" (531). Although these were important jobs in maintaining the foxes, her work was continuously overlooked as insignificant by her mother. This was another reason the girl idolized her father more than her mother: he did not continuously remind her of what her role should be and did not...

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Boys and Girls. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 20:08, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/100479.html