Comparing Boys And Girls By Alice Munro And All The Years Of Her Life

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It is with exciting incidents and great demands that a person can change themselves. Through time and unique experiences one may reconsider their purpose and their lifestyle. It is evolution which allows one to change their morals and shape their character. Many factors affect how one chooses to live such as family, friends, and society. The presence of character evolution is exemplified in two short stories; Boys and Girls by Alice Munro and All the Years of Her Life by Morley Callaghan. The protagonist in Boys and Girls, a girl who is also the narrator, is challenged by gender roles in her time period while in All the Years of Her Life, the protagonist, Alfred a male in his adolescence becomes aware of who he should be with his surroundings. In both stories through parental expectations and conflict, the protagonists change in their respective ways to fit in with society. …show more content…

The expectations set by these peoples, especially parents is an ordeal itself. In All the Years of Her Life Alfred dissatisfies his parents. His mother emphasizes, “You’re bad a lot. God forgive you.”(Callaghan 4). Mrs. Higgins shows how fed up she is with his behavior. Alfred has “disgraced” her, “again and again” (Callaghan 4). He is immature and is always messing up. He fails to prove himself worthy towards his parents. He realizes that because of him he has caused many problems to his family and how “his youth seemed to be over” (Callaghan 5). He acknowledges his change and matures from that point on. Similarly in Boys and Girls, the Narrator is challenged against her parents. She is criticized upon all her actions and is given high expectations. For example “Girls don’t slam doors. Girls kept their knees together when they sit down” (Munro 52). Also when the narrator express’s

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