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Boys and Girls (Alice Munro)
Boys and Girls (Alice Munro)
Essay analysis on barbie doll by marge piercy
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The societal pressures faced by women is, arguably, the main topic of Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls,” Mary Wollstonecraft’s essay “Introduction to A Vindication of the Rights of Women” and Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll.” “Boys and Girls” deals with those societal pressures faced by women within both the home and family life. Alternatively, “Introduction to A Vindication of the Rights of Women” and “Barbie Doll” deal with those societal pressures faced by women in society at large. All three show how societal pressures are acting against women, but “Introduction to A Vindication of the Rights of Women” and “Barbie Doll” go even further by showing the negative effects of these pressures.
In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” societal pressures are primarily exerted by the older women in a girl’s surroundings. Girls are pressured by their mothers and grandmothers into filling specific roles within both the family and around the house. The behaviour of girls, and in turn women, is the basis of such a pressure. The behaviour of the main character in “Boys and Girls” is often dictated by the older women around her. Her grandmother can often be heard saying things like: ‘“Girls [do not] slam doors”’ (497) and ‘“Girls keep their knees together when they sit”’ (497) reflecting the kind of control older women attempt to exert of the behaviour of younger women. In this society, a girl cannot ask questions because such things are ‘“none of a girl’s business”’ (497). The main character’s mother complains that ‘“[it is] not like I had a girl in the family at all,”’ (495), simply because the girl would rather spend her time helping her father with his work than helping her mother with the, in her opinion, “endless, dreary and pecul...
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...related. By all accounts, Mary Wollstonecraft should consider the main character in “Barbie Doll” to be a near perfect woman; she has all of the characteristics that Wollstonecraft believes women should have. And yet she throws it all away for what – to be pretty? Piercy’s “Barbie Doll” is the poetic expression of Wollstonecraft’s eighteenth century woman, revealing just how little has changed in the pressures faced by women in almost two hundred years.
Works Cited
Munro, Alice. “Boys and Girls.” Introduction to Literature 5th ed. Eds. Findlay et al. Toronto: Nelson, 2004. 491-502.
Piercy, Marge. “Barbie Doll.” Introduction to Literature 5th ed. Eds. Findlay et al. Toronto: Nelson, 2004. 316-317.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. “An Introduction to A Vindication of the Rights of Women.” Introduction to Literature 5th ed. Eds. Findlay et al. Toronto: Nelson, 2004. 19-23.
In the beginning of “Barbie Doll”, pleasurable and unpleasurable imagery is given so that the reader can see the extremes girls go through to be considered perfect.
The treatment of females from the 18th century through the 21st century have only gotten worse due to society’s ignorant judgment of the gender. Of which, is the change from the previous housewife like actions to the modern day body figure. This repulsive transaction is perceived throughout literature. From the 19th century’s short story, “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin in 1894 and the 20th century’s poem, “Barbie Doll” composed by Marge Piercy in 1971.
In Marge Piercy’s, “Barbie Doll,” we see the effect that society has on the expectations of women. A woman, like the girl described in ‘Barbie Doll’, should be perfect. She should know how to cook and clean, but most importantly be attractive according to the impossible stereotypes of womanly beauty. Many women in today’s society are compared to the unrealistic life and form of the doll. The doll, throughout many years, has transformed itself from a popular toy to a role model for actual women. The extremes to which women take this role model are implicated in this short, yet truthful poem.
“If Barbie was designed by a man, suddenly a lot of things made sense to me,” says Emily Prager in her essay “Our Barbies, Ourselves” (Prager 354). Prager’s purpose for writing this essay is to explain the history of Barbie and how the doll itself has influenced and continue to influence our society today. Prager is appealing to the average girl, to those who can relate to the way she felt growing up with Barbie seen as the ideal woman. Emily Prager uses a constant shift between a formal and informal tone to effectively communicate her ideas that we view women today based upon the unrealistic expectations set forth by Barbie. By adopting this strategy she avoids making readers feel attacked and therefore
“Boys and Girls” is an interesting story and it was an easy short story to read and understand how the narrator was feeling, because I can almost relate it to my own life. This short story is about a young girl’s struggle to adulthood in a society with gender roles and stereotypes. The story took 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 creation 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 by Munro
Munro, Alice ““Boys and Girls” Viewpoints 11. Ed, Amanda Joseph and Wendy Mathieu. Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall, 2001. Print.
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.
“Boys and Girls” is a short story, by Alice Munro, which illustrates a tremendous growing period into womanhood, for a young girl living on a fox farm in Canada, post World War II. The young girl slowly comes to discover her ability to control her destiny and her influences on the world. The events that took place over the course of the story helped in many ways to shape her future. From these events one can map the Protagonist’s future. The events that were drawn within the story provided the Protagonist with a foundation to become an admirable woman.
In the analysis of the issue in question, I have considered Mary Wollstonecraft’s Text, Vindication of the Rights of Woman. As an equivocal for liberties for humanity, Wollstonecraft was a feminist who championed for women rights of her time. Having witnessed devastating results or men’s improvidence, Wollstonecraft embraced an independent life, educated herself, and ultimately earned a living as a writer, teacher, and governess. In her book, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” she created a scandal perhaps to her unconventional lifestyle. The book is a manifesto of women rights arguing passionately for educating women. Sensualist and tyrants appear right in their endeavor to hold women in darkness to serve as slaves and their plaything. Anyone with a keen interest in women rights movement will surely welcome her inexpensive edition, a landmark documen...
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.
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.
Munro, Alice. "Boys and Girls." The Norton Introduction to Literature. Eds. Carl E. Bain, Jerome Beaty and J. Paul Hunter. 6th ed. New York: Norton, 1995.
Stone, Tanya Lee. The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: A Doll's History and Her Impact on Us. New York: Penguin Group, 2010. Print.
Mary Wollstonecraft was an author during the Romantic Period. This was a time that put an emphasis and feeling and personal reflection. A shift in values led for the mind to be filled with ideas of individual liberty. These ideas were not immediately projected towards women, and advocates for women’s rights argued that if individual libe...
"Boys and Girls" by Alice Munro highlights and emphasises the theme of initiation. The story depicts initiation as a rite of passage according to gender stereotypes and a loss of innocence. Conformity plays a vital role in determining the outcome of the narrator's passage into adulthood. Throughout the story, the narrator is confronted with conflicting thoughts and ideas regarding her initiation into adulthood. Ultimately, she wishes to work with her father, and stay a 'tomboy,' but through a conflict with her mother and grandmother, she comes to realise that she is expected, like the women before her, to adopt the gender stereotype which comes with her growing and passing into adult hood. Similarly, her younger brother, Laird, is also initiated, but into man-hood, something he yearns for. In conclusion, Munro's story illustrates the struggles between the dreams and reality of the rite of passage and initiation, based on gender stereotypes society has placed on men and women.