Alice Munro's "Boys and Girls"
Alice Munro's short story, "Boys and Girls," has a very interesting
detail written into it. The narrator's brother is named Laird, which was
carefully chosen by the author. Laird is a synonym for lord, which plays a
important role in a story where a young girl has society's unwritten rules
forced upon her. At the time of the story, society did not consider men and
women equal. The name symbolized how the male child was superior in the
parents' eyes and in general. Along with that, the name also symbolizes the
difference between the sexes when this story took place.
The time when this story took place was a time when men and women were
not equal. Mothers had traditional roles, which usually left them in the house,
while men also had their roles, outside of the house. The male was the dominant
figure in the house, while the woman had to be subservient.
It was an off thing to see my mother down at the barn. She did not
often come out of the house unless it was to do something - hang out the wash or
dig potatoes in the garden. She looked out of place, with her bare lumpy legs,
not touched by the sun, her apron still on and damp across the stomach from the
supper dishes.1
The narrator had problems coming to terms with the role in life that she
was expected to lead. She wanted to work outside with her father doing the work
that she deemed important. The mother tried to get the narrator to work inside
doing work deemed appropriate for a lady, however it was not something she
enjoyed. "I hated the hot dark kitchen in the summer" (p. 530). The narrator
was not considered of any consequential help to her father, simply because she
was female.
"Could of fooled me," said the salesman. "I thought it was only a girl"
(p. 529). Even though the narrator could do more work than her younger brother,
she was still under appreciated. "Wait till Laird gets a little bigger, then
you'll have a real help" (p. 530). Laird, on the other hand, was able to go
out and do the things that he enjoyed. When Flora, the family's horse, runs
away Laird is invited to join the father and his assistant to re-capture the
horse, while the narrator must stay at home.
When the narrator is reminiscing of the past, she recalls a time when
she lured Laird up to the top of the barn. The whole purpose of this idea was
Antigone is a powerful character, strong-willed, determined and at times self-righteous. She is contrasted by her sister Ismene, who is weak and powerless. Though Antigone is a powerful character, she has no real political power and is dominated by one man, Creon. Creon is both the ruler of the state as well as the patriarch of her family. Antigone was raised by Creon’s house after her own father went in to exile. Antigone is betrothed to Creon’s son, Haemon, further cementing Creon’s power over her. There is one aspect of life that Antigone does have legitimate power in and that is her family, especially her blood line. In ancient-Greek culture the women’s place was in the home, she was responsible for household things and often wasn’t even allowed to leave the house. It is because of this responsibility that Antigone needed to bury her brother Polynices even though it went against the decree of Creon. Antigone also had the gods on her side. It was an unwritten rule of ancient Greek society that the dead must be buried, otherwise bad things may happen. This rule, because it was unwritten and therefore innate, was protected by the gods, specifically Hades, the god of the underworld and family.
Men and women were seen to live in separate social class from the men where women were considered not only physically weaker, but morally superior to men. This meant that women were the best suited for the domestic role of keeping the house. Women were not allowed in the public circle and forbidden to be involved with politics and economic affairs as the men made all the
Since the biblical days, society was very structural with the role of the “Man” and the “Woman.” This concept came to be known as the term gender roles, referring to the significant differences between men and women due to an established role and expectation created by society itself. Society’s expectations of the man’s character were assertiveness, analytical, and unemotional. These characteristics, collectively, coin the term masculine for men. And society’s expectations of the woman’s character were sensitivity, nurturing, and emotional, which together coined the term feminine. Along with the standards of feminine and masculine came responsibilities both the man and the woman. The male had economic responsibilities and the female had domestic
In order for hospitals to be reimbursed from government based insure companies certain standards must be met. When standards are not met, any subsequent cost in relationship to preventable errors will not be remunerated (Youngberg, 2011). These preventable errors are termed never events. Never events are considered error that can be prevented if certain checklist and guidelines are in place are followed such as medication errors, falls with injury, wrong surgical site, and pressure ulcers (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2012). There are currently ten mandated never events (Youngberg, 2011). In order to avoid these preventable human errors, risk manager help implement policies and procedure. This process based on risk analysis and outcomes which helps to improv...
In ancient Greece, “Remembrance of the dead was a very important civic and religious duty” (Burial) and considered to “elevate[d] to the concept of housia (holiness) to one 's relationship with the gods” (Burial). The Greeks insisted that “the dead must continually be remembered and respected in order for their souls to continue to exist in the afterlife” (Burial). In Antigone’s eyes the gods make the law when it comes to death, not a mortal king. She fights with all her might for what she believes in, even going as far as committing suicide and this ultimately makes her a martyr. In Kathryn Walker’s article, she states, “…that human behavior is not thoroughly governed by the pursuit of what is beneficial, [it] requires a revision of ethics” (Walker 204) which can be found to be true in Antigone when she risks her life for her brother, her beliefs, and how Antigone chooses to die. Antigone was being sentenced to death anyway, but she decided to take her own death in her hands and choose a quick death by hanging rather than a long drawn out death by starvation. It was her last “stick it” to the state.
The goal of patient safety is to prevent harm to patients Mitchell (n.d.). Patient safety in any health system is critical not only for the credibility of the system, but for patient trust and satisfaction as well. Adverse outcomes are defined as any injury or harm resulting from medical care (Watcher, 2008). Adverse outcomes can result in death and disability and cost the health system dearly. Bernard and Encinosa (2004) reported that in the U.S. it costs twice as much to care for patients that experienced adverse outcomes. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) (2000) reported that adverse outcomes cost the U.S. more than 16 billion dollars or 6% of total inpatient costs. Therefore, adverse events are costly both in terms of human life and fiscal resources.
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 the play Creon goes against the Gods by making it illegal to bury Polyneices, Antigone’s brother because he is deemed a traitor. The burying of a dead body is seen as a necessity by all of Greece as it is an unspoken law of the Gods. Antigone goes to bury her brother so his afterlife will be better. She does it in spite of the law that Creon has made. “It is the dead, not the living, who make the longest demands” (192) She tries to explain to her sister, Ismene, that they must bury Polyneices, but even that close relationship has trouble because of the law. Ismene is unwilling to suffer the consequences of the law, to save her brother’s soul “Forgive me but I am helpless: I must yield to those in authority” (192) Even the two sisters who have just lost both of their brothers have different views on the matter. One will not stray from the law and what is deemed right by their king, while the other will accept any punishment, even death just to do what she believes is right.
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 “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.
All throughout the early part of history women were portrayed as the inferior sex, because at that point in time, women were seen as beings only born to have children. Men didn’t think that women were capable of being anything other than a typical housewife. It was unthinkable that women would actually need an education, let alone earn a living, or become a leader. These ideas are revealed all throughout classical literature. Rarely was a woman seen as doing anything but being dominated by males in some form, whether she was a man’s submissive devoted wife, a sexual object, or a woman being punished for wanting her freedom. We finally begin to see women trying to break free from these traditional expectations and barriers through the lives of Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, John’s wife in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Louise Mallard in “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, and Songlian in Raise the Red Lantern by Su Tong.
Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” is a story about a girl that struggles against society’s ideas of how a girl should be, only to find her trapped in the ways of the world.
...earning from her mother, she will define herself as well. Indeed, it is not easy growing up. It is painfully hard to defy the person that you most admire, in this case her father. But at some point in our young lives we must break free from the conformity of our parents' world in order to give birth to our "self." This is what Alice Munro shows us through "Boys and Girls."
These humans were hunter-gatherers. This means they lived nomadically, living primarily off of hunted animals and gathered foods. This is where gender-roles originated. Our modern hypothesis for why the roles were this way is because males were better suited physically and had eyes that better adjusted in the dark, which were both very helpful in terms of hunting. Woman's eyes were better for seeing colors which was useful in collecting edible fruits and other plants.
by her father and his choice of husband for her - she could run away