From a young age girls are taught how to act in society and how society wants girls to act. In the three stories by Jamacia Kincaid, Alice Munro, and Joyce Carol Oates, we see how the mothers teach and reinforce the gender roles placed on women by society. The daughters in Annie John, “Boys and Girls,” and “Shopping” are all subjects of a greater force while growing up, and they try not to conform to gender roles and the ideals of women that the mothers have.
In Annie John Annie’s mother forces Annie to grow up and become a respectable woman; however, Annie refuses to follow the roles assigned to a woman. At a young age unbeknownst to her, Annie learned certain gender roles. While playing with Mineu she would play the supporting characters,
In The Refusal and Transgression in Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Wesley states that daughter’s psychological growth towards autonomous individualization is stunted by the image created by the culture . We see Annie struggling to decide how she fits in and how she does not in her friendship with the Red Girl, who was not society’s image of a young girl. In several ways the Red Girl is the start to Annie’s resistance to gender roles. The Red Girl climbed trees, and didn’t bathe as regularly as Annie had to; she also played marbles. Annie was so intrigued by the Red Girl that she imitated her values; even after the Red Girl left, Annie never tried to become a lady; unlike Gwen, who fully accepted the roles that society placed on her. Near the end of the story when Annie tells Gwen goodbye, in her mind Annie calls her a monkey and says that she can barely finish a sentence without giggling. To Annie the roles of a woman are beneath her. She does not try to dumb herself down, as Gwen had done for anyone’s benefit. Annie also refuses to marry telling her
At the beginning the room her brother and she share are undifferentiated, showing how the two have not adapted to their gender roles yet , and when she daydreams, she is the hero of the stories, which is the role that is normally given to the man. She works outside with her father and takes pride in knowing that she is more capable of the work than her brother Laird, as her father gave her the real watering can and Laird was given the one for gardening. Throughout the story, however, the word girl is constantly used as an insult against her. For example, when a feed salesman comes to the father, the father introduces her as a hired-hand, and the salesman laughs and says “ ‘Could of fooled me.’ He said ‘I thought it was only a girl.’” The mother also reinforces that she should not be out there when she talks to the father about keeping the girl inside. The narrator sees her mother in a negative light and does not want to become her; she hates housework and describes it as depressing and endless, despite the fact that shortly after she says that the father’s work is “ritualistically important.” The grandmother also tries to force the narrator to act more lady-like constantly saying, " ‘Girls don 't slam doors like that.’ ‘Girls keep
The world in the 1940s was very different for men and women then it is now in the 21st century and although things are progressing for women, men are still considered superior. The musical “Annie Get Your Gun” directed by George Sidney is about Annie Oakley, a young sharpshooter who manages to support her younger siblings with the game she hunts. Her amazing shooting skills allowed her to beat Frank Butler, the best show marksman, in a shooting match. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show’s managers decide to recruit Annie, and even though Annie doesn’t even know what a show business is, she agrees to join them because she has fallen in love with Frank. Throughout the musical, Annie and Frank’s relationship faces difficulties because Frank cannot stand
The time period from “Girl” portrays how women were treated and forced to act when they were raised as oppose of young boys. Through out the story we understand that young ladies were forced to learn how do domestic duties from a very young age. An example of this is” this is how you sew on a button…this
Jean Louise, or Scout, had no intention of becoming ladylike. She was, essentially, a tomboy because she grew up playing with Jem and Dill, and she had no mother. In the games they would play, Jem would assign Scout “girl” roles, in which she would not play a major part because men had the more important roles. Jem had a lot to do with Scout’s defiance to ladylike behavior. In more instances than one, he would insult Scout by calling her a girl, or saying that unless she stopped acting like a girl, she couldn’t play with him and Dill. Along with that aspect, Jem was considered a “gentleman” which is a respectable quality for boy or man. However...
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.”
Gender roles have been the one of the longest conflicts since the creation of man. Females have been struggling to gain way in the country since the foundation of the United States. For most of our country’s life up until the 1940’s women predominantly were supposed to stay at the house and do all the house work. For a fictional unnamed female child in the short story “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro, the life of the average woman is not the life she wants to live. She wants to work the hard labor with her father who sells fox pelts but, she is constantly getting “harassed” by her mother to do lady like work. The women’s struggle for rights can be divided up into centuries starting with the 19th and continuing to present day. At the end of the story the girl finally accepts her role as a female because she messes up and her father says, “She’s only a girl.” Men on the other hand, have had always had any opportunity they wanted but, generally their role is the
The daughters in this film struggled with traditional sex roles mainly due to the influence of their mothers. In many cases, the mothers tried desperately hard to encourage their daughters to have power over their lives, be successful, and have a strong self-esteem. This over-encouragement to lead a life that they could not, led many of the daughters to feel inferior because they could not live up to their mother's expectations. In some cases, this led to the daughters getting involved in relationships in which they relied on their husbands for power and support. So in essence, it was their mothers' extremely high hopes for their daughters that led them to feeling inferior as women when these hopes could not be fulfilled.
Worse, when women swallow the emptiness, loneliness, and naked violence that comes with their gender performance, their ability to develop self-awareness on matters such as academic, sexual, reproductive, safety, and health care rights no longer exists. When characters such as Ruth from Green Girls come to believe that womanhood means being on display and having to perform their roles as women in public spheres despite the feelings of wanting to shield oneself from strangers, they lose their freedom and become fettered to performative roles. Their performance of gender becomes, as Butler mentions, the result of both subtle and blatant coercions. These coercions offer a script of life that women must follow in order to remain the star of their
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.
When the ladies are at Atticus’s house for the missionary circle, Aunt Alexandra says, “Stay with us Jean Louise” (229). She is trying as hard as she can to make Scout more lady-like. Aunt Alexandra wants Scout to have an experience of what it is like to be a woman and to act like one. Scout mainly takes part in gossip, serving others, and does other perceived feminine activities in the society. These are some of the activities expected to be in a woman’s life during the novel’s time
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.
“Girl” written by Jamaica Kincaid is essentially a set of instructions given by an adult, who is assumed to be the mother of the girl, who is laying out the rules of womanhood, in Caribbean society, as expected by the daughter’s gender. These instructions set out by the mother are related to topics including household chores, manners, cooking, social conduct, and relationships. The reader may see these instructions as demanding, but these are a mother’s attempt, out of care for the daughter, to help the daughter to grow up properly. The daughter does not appear to have yet reached adolescence, however, her mother believes that her current behavior will lead her to a life of promiscuity. The mother postulates that her daughter can be saved from a life of promiscuity and ruin by having domestic knowledge that would, in turn also, empower her as a productive member in their community and the head of her future household. This is because the mother assumes that a woman’s reputation and respectability predisposes the quality of a woman’s life in the community.
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” 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.
The short story, Girl, by Jamaica Kincaid, can very easily be related directly to the author’s own life. Kincaid had a close relationship with her mother until her three younger brothers were born. After the birth of her brothers, three major values of her mother became apparent to Kincaid. In turn, Kincaid used the three values of her mother to write the short story, Girl. Specifically, these values led to three themes being formed throughout the story. It appears in the short story that the mother was simply looking out for her daughter; however, in all reality, the mother is worried about so much more. Kincaid uses the themes of negativity towards female sexuality, social norms and stereotypes, and the significant
...r to the Beast during a card game. The father uses her as some kind of object and uses words like “pearl” and “treasure” to demonstrate how she is one. Carter uses these words to describe how the narrator is looked at for sale in the game the Beast and her father play as well. This shows shallowness of society's idea of a woman. According to society women were looked as dolls and they were winded up by their husbands and performed whatever tasks they wanted them to. Females appeared to not be able to think for themselves or be able to act upon their own natural instincts. Females also had to play this role of a doll by just using their appearance as a major feature in their marriage and doing what they were told by their husband without questioning it. In this story you see how the male gender has ownership over the female character and it was socially acceptable.