Alice Munro's Boys and Girls
In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” she tells a story about a young girl’s resistance to womanhood in a society infested with gender roles and stereotypes. The story takes place in the 1940s on a fox farm outside of Jubilee, Ontario, Canada. During this time, women were viewed as second class citizens, but the narrator was not going to accept this position without a fight.
Munro’s invention of an unnamed character symbolized the narrator’s lack of identity, compared to her younger brother, who was given the name Laird, which is a synonym for “Lord”. These names were given purposely by Munro to represent how at birth the male child was naturally considered superior to his sister.
The father in the story was a fox farmer. He raised foxes and when their fur was prime, he skinned them and sold their pelts for profit. Growing up, “the girl” sought for attention from her father, therefore, she began to enjoy helping him work outside with the foxes. “My father did not talk to me unless it was about the job we were doing … Nevertheless I worked willingly under his eyes, and with a feeling of pride.” Consequently, she began to dread working in the kitchen with her mother, and thus loss respect for her mother’s subservient position in the household. When describing her mother’s housework it was “endless” compared to her father’s work outside, which was “ritualistically important.” This obvious resentment for society’s womanly duties symbolizes the narrator’s desire to be more than “just a girl”.
The protagonist in the story began to realize society’s views of her when her father introduced her to a salesman, while she was working outside, as his “new hired hand”. She was almost pleased until the salesman replied “I thought it was only a girl”. Even her grandmother bombarded her with commands, “Girls keep their knees together when they sit down.” And “Girls don’t slam doors like that.” The worst was when she asked a question and her grandmother answered “That’s none of a girl’s business.” Even after that, she continued to slam doors and sit awkwardly because she felt that it kept her free. In other words, she was not ready to accept and claim her gender identity.
In the story, “Boys and Girls”, the narrator is not the only one coming to terms with their identity.
During the Victorian Era, society had idealized expectations that all members of their culture were supposedly striving to accomplish. These conditions were partially a result of the development of middle class practices during the “industrial revolution… [which moved] men outside the home… [into] the harsh business and industrial world, [while] women were left in the relatively unvarying and sheltered environments of their homes” (Brannon 161). This division of genders created the ‘Doctrine of Two Spheres’ where men were active in the public Sphere of Influence, and women were limited to the domestic private Sphere of Influence. Both genders endured considerable pressure to conform to the idealized status of becoming either a masculine ‘English Gentleman’ or a feminine ‘True Woman’. The characteristics required women to be “passive, dependent, pure, refined, and delicate; [while] men were active, independent, coarse …strong [and intelligent]” (Brannon 162). Many children's novels utilized these gendere...
The story, depended on her affection for the historical backdrop of country Ontario, Canada, where she grew up. When one first peruses the story, it may seem confounding. Munro utilizes an outside storyteller, who bounced forward and backward in time from the 1800s to the 1980s. This storyteller incorporates outside wellsprings of data, for example, news cut-outs and portions from books—that intrude on the stream of the story and stun the follower, and, toward the end of the story, the credibility of the storyteller is raised doubt about, which can make a few pursuers address the purpose of the story. However, when one warrens more profound, the explanations behind these apparently bumping account devices, which are another trademark of Munro's written work, turn out to be clear. Through its complicated structure and the utilization of a sketchy storyteller, "Meneseteung" eventually investigates numerous topics. Therefore, Munro's story can be delighted in on numerous levels. One can read the story as a faithful piece, analysing the life of a Canadian frontierswoman who lives in a male-ruled society and who experiences the improper parts of the human experience. One can likewise focus on the storyteller, who is recreating this story by utilizing reliable bits of data and extrapolating to cover the crevices.
...Boyarin overcome his fear of being labeled by the society by sticking up to his morals and ethics. This shows that an individual’s fear of being labeled by the society can depend on the situations they face which shape their strategies of personal identity.
She begins to cry fearing that her father will not trust her anymore. However, when the father does not become angry, but blames her action on the fact that “She’s only a girl” (Munro 147), the young girl seems to accept his explanation. She said, “I didn’t protest that, even in my heart. “May be it was true” (Munro 147). At that point, it is possible to understand that the girl who once viewed her mother as being silly and dumb for talking about boys and dances was becoming that girl. She was accepting a gender role in society for herself that was based on going to dances and being with boys as opposed to feeding wolves and working on the farm (Rasporich 114).
...devoted herself to the practical and compensating notion of supporting a household during the early 1900s. The farm girl’s exclusion from society allowed her to possess freedom, unattainable to the Gibson Girl. Victorian society bound the Gibson Girl to unrealistic expectations and oppressive restrictions. Society possessed no dominance over the ideals and appearances of a farm girl thus demonstrating that the Gibson Girl’s life held just as many, if not more, difficulties.
From gender delegations, gender discrimination, and gender shaming the world is messed up place. From Scout, to the Flappers, to Leelah Alcorn nobody seemed to show any remorse towards the discrimination of any of them. Whether its society, the friends, or even the parents everyone seems to follows society’s gender guidelines and they beat up on who doesn’t no matter who they are, even if it drives them to the point of suicide. When society admits a gender rule everyone is pushed to follow this guideline and if they don’t well, from what it seems like they should just kill themselves unless they change. Similar to Scout, she was perfectly fine dressing like a boy, acting like a boy, and playing with boys until her Aunt installed these insecurities in her head to make her change her views and essentially herself. Society seems to always get it’s
Alice Munro was born and raised in Sowesto, a small Canadian town, which directly influenced her success in writing. In small towns such as Sowesto, a woman’s place in society was to stay home and cook, clean, and raise children. If a woman did have a job, it typically was simple such as school teaching, writing for a newspaper, or piano playing. Another challenge facing Munro--and others who wished to pursue writing--was the lack of authenticity of Canadian writing. Wishing to be successful writer on a worldly platform was something to be laughed at not only because publishers in Canada were few and far between but in general, works from Great Britain and USA were what people throughout the world recognized and loved. However, many other factors of being raised in Canada played a role in Munro’s success. Religion in a small Canadian town typically had a Protestant culture that believed forgiveness was hard to receive and punishments were harsh and often and that shame and humiliation were close by. Her ancestry also largely influenced her outlook on the world.
The narrator and her husband’s interactions shows her as submissive in terms of gender equality. Although John perceives the narrator as a child with no volunteer ideas, it is shown in her journal that this theory is not valid because she was shaped to comply by the society and the norm. The narrator’s inferiority negatively impacts her mental and physical health to the point she had to rip off the wallpaper to break free. Nevertheless, when read critically, the story also unveil the women’s suffrage movement and its struggle. Since this story was published, women are slowly breaking away from men’s suppression and gaining more rights. In short, society and culture define gender roles; however, the changing economic, social, and education environment open up a new path for women. Nowadays, women are given the chance to prove themselves and can act beyond their gender roles. However, the equality between genders has not been achieved yet. Therefore, women should continue to fight for their rights and freedoms until they are treated with respect and enjoy
Teenage rebellion is typically portrayed in stories, films, and other genres as a testosterone-based phenomenon. There is an overplayed need for one to acknowledge a boy’s rebellion against his father, his life direction, the “system,” in an effort to become a man, or rather an adult. However, rarely is the female addressed in such a scenario. What happens when little girls grow up? Do they rebel? Do they, in a sudden overpowering rush of estrogen, deny what has been taught to them from birth and shed their former youthful façades? Do they turn on their mothers? In Sharon Olds’ poem, “The Possessive,” the reader is finally introduced to the female version of the popular coming-of-age theme as a simple haircut becomes a symbol for the growing breach between mother and daughter through the use of striking images and specific word choice.
Gender is intertwined in many of society’s institutions-education, religion, relationships, and politics- and because it is tangled up in all, it is very hard to change gender as an institution. It is very likely to be reinforced beginning in childhood; from children, adults, and peers. Because of the reinforcement, it is reproduced from parents to children and conforming is the easiest way to go through society. Change happens very slowly and although there is change from my grandmother’s experience to my own, I see the change as not very fluid- instead of water it’s more like heavy mud.
In the short story, “Girl,” the narrator describes certain tasks a woman should be responsible for based on the narrator’s culture, time period, and social standing. This story also reflects the coming of age of this girl, her transition into a lady, and shows the age gap between the mother and the daughter. The mother has certain beliefs that she is trying to pass to her daughter for her well-being, but the daughter is confused by this regimented life style. The author, Jamaica Kincaid, uses various tones to show a second person point of view and repetition to demonstrate what these responsibilities felt like, how she had to behave based on her social standing, and how to follow traditional customs.
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.
In her story, Boys and Girls, Alice Munro depicts the hardships and successes of the rite of passage into adulthood through her portrayal of a young narrator and her brother. Through the narrator, the subject of the profound unfairness of sex-role stereotyping, and the effect this has on the rites of passage into adulthood is presented. The protagonist in Munro's story, unidentified by a name, goes through an extreme and radical initiation into adulthood, similar to that of her younger brother. Munro proposes that gender stereotyping, relationships, and a loss of innocence play an extreme, and often-controversial role in the growing and passing into adulthood for many young children. Initiation, or the rite of passage into adulthood, is, according to the theme of Munro’s story, both a mandatory and necessary experience.
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.”
Feminism has made a major change in not just women’s lives but in the world. Throughout the world, women have always been considered “second class citizens” yet as the years have passed, proven facts show that women are capable of working just as good as men and even do more duties at the same time. In the early centuries most women weren’t able to get any type of credit without a male cosigner and in certain countries their husbands had complete control not only for their property but for their earnings as well. Men created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated, but deemed of little account in man. Women