Boys and Girls, Alice Munro
Alice Munro's short story, "Boys and Girls," explores the different roles of men and women in society through a young girl's discovery of what it means to be a girl. A close examination of the elements of a short story as they are used in "Boys and Girls" helps us to understand the meaning of the story.The story is set in the 1940s, on a fox farm outside of Jubilee, a rural area only twenty miles away from the county jail. The farm is a place that reflects the ingenuity of the narrator's father. The pens for the foxes are arranged in neat rows, inside a high guard fence like a "medieval town". The pens each contain a kennel, a wooden ramp, and dishes attached to the wire fence. The fox farm is the father's domain, a place of hard work and creativity, in which the narrator feels at home. The house itself is the mother's domain, but it is a place that the narrator shuns, as she shuns many elements of the feminine world. The contrast between the girl's concept of the farm and of the house demonstrates the conflict she experiences between her chosen position as her father's helper and her position in society as a girl.The point of view of the story is first person. The narrator is a young girl in the process of
The theme of this story has several aspects. She's only a girl," the narrator sees it as "the words which absolved and dismissed me for good. "In conclusion, the elements of this short story work together very well to demonstrate the theme of the story. At the beginning of the story he is very young and obeys his big sister, no matter what she tells him to do; at the end, he too has grown up somewhat and no longer accepts her authority unquestioningly. This is not an extremely symbolic story. Afterwards, when they have all returned to the house and are eating dinner, Laird suddenly tells his father about his sister's part in letting the horse escape. The narrator is angered by her mother's intrusion, believing that her mother is plotting to keep her in the house just because she knows she hates it. Another aspect is the process of growing up-the way in which childhood dreams give way to realism. These are first seen in the narrator's fantasies, in which she imagines herself doing heroic things which often involve riding a magnificent horse-she had only been on a horse twice-or shooting a dangerous animal to save her friends-she was just learning to shoot. Yet, in the story it is evident that the narrator is just as good a worker as her brother-far better, because of her advantage in age. By writing the story in this way, Munro gives us a look at women's role in society through the eyes of a girl who is just finding out the effect that society's expectations have on her. When the time comes for Flora to be shot, she does not choose to watch, until Flora breaks away from the men and runs into the field. The most important aspect of the theme, in my opinion, is the narrator's final realization that the limitations which society places on females, by expecting them to be weak and irrational, can actually be liberating to women. Seeing the calmness with which her father shoots the horse, and the callousness with which Henry Bailey laughs at Mack's death throes, shakes her up and begins to change her view of the masculine world of the fox farm, in which she has previously been so comfortable. Laird is the only character beside Henry Bailey that is given a name.
Common topics in this essay:
Henry Bailey,
Bailey Henry,
Boys Girls,
Mack Flora,
fox farm,
Alice Munro's,
horse escape,
henry bailey,
short story,
role society,
theme story,
role society eyes,
short story boys,
elements short story,
gate horse escape,
she's girl,
women's role,
girl phrase,
mack flora,
story boys girls,
|
Acceptance Essays
