The process in which human beings advance through different stages in their life towards adulthood is highly hellacious. Moreover, it is very likely that one might encounter some difficulty in this progression. However, it is in human nature that we learn by failing at things, then mastering them by repeating them again and again. In the novel Lives of Girls and Women, Alice Munroe presents the life of Del Jordan in a very interesting way. The novel is divided into eight stages of Del’s life, where she experiences different scenarios which ultimately give her a better understanding of life. Even though being curious has its pros and cons, at the end of the day it leads to the enhancement of a person’s inner self. In the novel Lives of Girls and Women, Del the protagonist can be analyzed as being a very enthusiastic girl. Moreover, her curiosity proves to be a dynamic benefit of her actions.
Firstly, as an individual develops, it is normal for one to be very keen. Moreover, the enthusiasm leads one to being curious and wanting to learn new things. During the early stages of Del’s life, her curiosity is reflecting with her interest on the life of Uncle Benny. She narrates his life in Flat Roads and presents Benny as an eccentric character who is single, likes to hunt at the pond, and lives in an extremely unorganized way. “So lying alongside our world was Uncle Benny’s world like a troubling distorted reflection” (Munro 22). This quote explicitly shows the interest Del maintains on the troublesome life of Uncle Benny as she analyzes his characteristics and the many obstacles he faces in life. For instance, due to the fact the Benny was unorganized and needed someone to look after his house, he came up with an idea of marrying a woma...
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... questioned gravity when an apple dropped on his head. This led to the discovery of physics that we study in schools today. However, too much curiosity is not good as well. Like they say “Curiosity killed the Cat” Del develops interests on topics regarding intercourse and gets sexually harassed by a man much older than her. All in all, we all should remember that curiosity is good if it is used in topics that would not cause great harm to you. As a human it is okay to be curious. What do you think? Is too much curiosity bad? Is Del right for being so curious?
Works Cited
Munro, Alice. Lives of Girls and Women. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. January, 1974. Book.
Stafford, Tom. "Why Are We so Curious?" BBC Health. BBC, 19 Jan. 2012. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
Rey, H. A. "Curious George - The Original Story (1941)." YouTube. YouTube, 23 May 2012. Web. 27 Jan. 2014.
In the short stories, living vicariously is a common motif the protagonists are victims of. They are being manipulated by their parents to achieve for them what themselves failed to accomplish. In the short story “Boys and Girls”, the narrator who is part of the female minority, is faced with the paradox of becoming what society but especially her mother wants her to become. Later on realizing that she did not had a choice, an...
Read, Phyllis J., and Bernard L. Witlieb. The Book of Women's Firsts. New York: Random House, 1992.
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.
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
Banner, Lois W. Women in Modern America a Brief History. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.
In the story “Two Kinds”, the author, Amy Tan, intends to make reader think of the meaning behind the story. She doesn’t speak out as an analyzer to illustrate what is the real problem between her and her mother. Instead, she uses her own point of view as a narrator to state what she has experienced and what she feels in her mind all along the story. She has not judged what is right or wrong based on her opinion. Instead of giving instruction of how to solve a family issue, the author chooses to write a narrative diary containing her true feeling toward events during her childhood, which offers reader not only a clear account, but insight on how the narrator feels frustrated due to failing her mother’s expectations which leads to a large conflict between the narrator and her mother.
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 was born and raised in Sowesto, a small Canadian town, which directly influenced her success in writing. In small towns such as Sowesto, a woman’s place in society was to stay home and cook, clean, and raise children. If a woman did have a job, it typically was simple such as school teaching, writing for a newspaper, or piano playing. Another challenge facing Munro--and others who wished to pursue writing--was the lack of authenticity of Canadian writing. Wishing to be successful writer on a worldly platform was something to be laughed at not only because publishers in Canada were few and far between but in general, works from Great Britain and USA were what people throughout the world recognized and loved. However, many other factors of being raised in Canada played a role in Munro’s success. Religion in a small Canadian town typically had a Protestant culture that believed forgiveness was hard to receive and punishments were harsh and often and that shame and humiliation were close by. Her ancestry also largely influenced her outlook on the world.
Lane, Ruth. 2007. “Book excels in gender issues: Encourages student in identifying, coping during changes.” The Spectator, September 27, 6B.
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.
Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning and also the basis of education. Curiosity had killed the cat indeed, however the cat died nobly. Lives of Girls and Women is a novel written by Nobel Prize Literature winner, Alice Munro. This novel is about a young girl, Del Jordan, who lives on Flats Road, Ontario. The novel is divided into eight chapters; and each chapter refers to a new, unique event in Del's life. As an overall analysis of the book reveals that Del Jordan's intriguing curiosity has helped her throughout her life, and enabled her to gain further knowledge The character is often seen in scenarios where her attention is captivated, and through the process of learning she acquires information in order to her answers her questions about particular subjects. There are many examples in the book that discuss Del’s life, and how she managed to gain information, as well as learn different methods of learning along the way.
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.
O'Reilly, B. (1886). The mirror of true womanhood: A book of instruction for women in the world. New York: P. J. Kenedy.
Change is the law of life. A person goes through different stages of life, and at every stage there is transformation in the personality of the person. This new individual is entirely different from the previous one. For this change, different circumstances and events are responsible. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane are two texts of feminism in which we find the theme of evolution among the life of the characters like Celie and Nazneen who, happened to highlight the oppression of women in universal phenomenon irrespective of caste, creed, culture and nation. My paper is an attempt to study these two characters and see how their personality is evolved because of the different circumstances of life.
As a newborn a gender is assigned, this gender being what you will be brought up as until you decide you want to bend the rules and change the roles, once more children realize they do not need to conform to the roles they develop a sense of love, confidence, and understanding for themselves and others. In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” the theme of gender is an anchor that gives the story a deeper meaning and gives the reader insight on stereotyping and gender assignment among children. The genders are what develop the main character, her assumed gender or lack of show how she grows and acts throughout the story. Moreover, gender roles are very prominent and these stereotypes show the setting where the family lives. Lastly, the roles reveal