Gender Roles In Boys And Girls By Alice Munro

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Recommended: Gender in literature

The Theme of Gender Roles Theme is a part of many literary works. In Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls”, the theme relates to gender roles. This is reveled through the relationships between the narrator her parents, the relationship between the narrator and her brother, and the narrator’s struggle with gender identity.
Through out the story the narrator has many moments to show the relationship between her and her parents. The narrator’s mother tries to connect to her by talking about girly stuff and mentions her past to connect, but the narrator prefers to be around her father. As an example, “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 …show more content…

The narrator notices a difference between her and her brother starting to occur and this distance between the two continues on throughout the story. “Once Laird and I were fighting, and for the first time ever I had to use all my strength against him; even so, he caught and pinned my arm for a moment, really hurting me… Laird was getting a lot bigger. But I was getting bigger too.” (page 8). This quote shows that men eventually get stronger than women even at a young age, but the narrator is determined that she will be strong too. Here it is shown that the two are grown into their own roles as well as slowly growing apart from one another. To elaborate, “We did not sing at night any more. One night when I was singing Laird said, "You sound silly," and I went right on but the next night I did not start. There was not so much need to anyway, we were no longer afraid. We knew it was just old furniture over there, old jumble and confusion. We did not keep to the rules” (page 14). As the story goes on the two’s relationship drifts apart, Laird helps his father more and the narrator gets a more feminine mind set.
Throughout the entire story the narrator finds herself questioning her gender identity. Being raised on a farm, she was quickly taught the idea of responsibility to do the job of get water for the foxes, “Lately I had been trying to make my part of the room fancy, spreading the bed with old lace curtains, and fixing myself a dressing table with some leftovers of cretonne for a skirt…In the sunlight, the lace curtains were just dusty rags” (Page 14). By taking the time to decorate her room and caring about its appearance, she is embracing her feminine

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