Only a Girl in Boys and Girls by Alice Munro

1814 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The gender conflict in munros "boys and girls

Only a Girl in Boys and Girls

Alice Munro's short story, "Boys and Girls," explores the different roles of men and women in society through a young girl's discovery of what it means to be a girl. A close examination of the elements of a short story as they are used in "Boys and Girls" helps us to understand the meaning of the story.

The story is set in the 1940s, on a fox farm outside of Jubilee, a rural area only twenty miles away from the county jail. The farm is a place that reflects the ingenuity of the narrator's father. The pens for the foxes are arranged in neat rows, inside a high guard fence like a "medieval town". The pens each contain a kennel, a wooden ramp, and dishes attached to the wire fence. The fox farm is the father's domain, a place of hard work and creativity, in which the narrator feels at home. The house itself is the mother's domain, but it is a place that the narrator shuns, as she shuns many elements of the feminine world. The contrast between the girl's concept of the farm and of the house demonstrates the conflict she experiences between her chosen position as her father's helper and her position in society as a girl.

The point of view of the story is first person. The narrator is a young girl in the process of growing up, who is, at the end of the story, only eleven years old. She is a naïve narrator, being so young, and is unreliable in her view of the people around her, especially her understanding of her mother's motives. By writing the story in this way, Munro gives us a look at women's role in society through the eyes of a girl who is just finding out the effect that society's expectations have on her.

The narrator is the main character of the story. As the protagonist, she is a ...

... middle of paper ...

... as a girl, her role in society is different from her father's and brother's. Although limitations are placed on her, she is free to follow her own heart. This, to her, is the meaning of being "only a girl."

In conclusion, the elements of this short story work together very well to demonstrate the theme of the story. The narrator's conflict between filling a masculine role and accepting a feminine one, the contrast between her mother and her father, and the setting that is divided between the mother's domain and father's domain all build the effect of the theme well. This story gives a fresh look at the question of women's role in society through the eyes of a young girl.

Work Consulted:

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. 465-75.

Show More
Related

  • Character Analysis: The Chocolate War

    609 Words  | 2 Pages

    1.Who is the narrator of the story? How is he or she connected to the story ( main character, observer, minor character)?

    Read More

  • Dorothea Dix

    948 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dix’s life work has had a lasting effect on the care and treatment of the mentally ill. Her goals were never concretely set in her mind, she simply did what was best for the people and accomplished immeasurable good in her lifetime. Not only did she bring to light the plight of the mentally ill, she helped to open the door for hospitals and asylums to be built across the country and bring about overall change in the care and treatment of the patients. She believed, and was able to show, that the “insane” weren’t a lost cause. With proper care and treatment many were able to recover and lead normal lives. This was something that professionals at the time didn’t think was possible. She awoke the nations conscience to the plight of the mentally ill.

    Read More

  • Comparing Girl by Jamaica Kincaid and A&P by John Updike

    1222 Words  | 3 Pages

    Within every story or poem, there is always an interpretation made by the reader, whether right or wrong. In doing so, one must thoughtfully analyze all aspects of the story in order to make the most accurate assessment based on the literary elements the author has used. Compared and contrasted within the two short stories, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, and John Updike’s “A&P,” the literary elements character and theme are made evident. These two elements are prominent in each of the differing stories yet similarities are found through each by studying the elements. The girls’ innocence and naivety as characters act as passages to show something superior, oppression in society shown towards women that is not equally shown towards men.

    Read More

  • An Examination of Royal Beatings by Alice Munro

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    It has been said of Anton Chekhov, the renown Russian short-story writer, that in all of his “work, there is never exactly a point. Rather we see into someone’s hear – in just a few pages, the curtain concealing these lives has been drawn back, revealing them in all their helplessness and rage and rancor.” Alice Munro, too, falls into this category. Many of her short-stories, such as “Royal Beatings” focus more on character revelation rather than plot.

    Read More

  • The Influence of Gender in "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ughter to realize that she is “not a boy” (171) and that she needs to act like a lady. Doing so will win the daughter the respect from the community that her mother wants for her.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Jamaica Kincaid's 'Girl'

    1010 Words  | 3 Pages

    The second person point of view helps the reader to connect with the girl in this story. It shows the reader a better understanding of this character and how she is being raised to be a respectable woman. This point of view also gives us an insight on the life of women and shows us how they fit into their society. Through this point of view, the reader can also identify the important aspects of the social class and culture. The daughter tries to assert a sense of selfhood by replying to the mother but it is visible that the mother is being over whelming and constraining her daughter to prepare her for

    Read More

  • Roles of Women in the Odyssey, Sakuntala and Good Country People

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    The influential roles of women in the story also have important effects on the whole poem. It is them that press the senses of love, family care, devotion, and other ethical attitudes on the progression of the story. In this poem the Poet has created a sort of “catalogue of women” in which he accurately creates and disting...

    Read More

  • Alice Munro's Boys and Girls

    1063 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Causes of World War One

    457 Words  | 1 Pages

    World War I was a fascinating, yet dramatic war for which there are a lot of different points of view. Some people argue that it was only Germanys fault, where-as others think that it had to do with the pressure put upon them by the other leading powers. Some of the things which triggered the war were the enormous rise in population, which happened very rapidly, caused by the Industrial Revolution. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the population of Europe was roughly 50 million; by 1820 it was about 100 million, and by 1870 it had reached the 200-million mark. By 1914 it had topped 300 million. (Stokesbury 11-12). With all the leading powers focused on the Balkans, war, to many, seemed inevitable. The new countries abused their power which was given to them by their major allies, causing enormous problems, and unnecessary tension to be built up. Alliances also caused a lot of problems like the one between Japan and England, where-after the Russians suffered a humiliating defeat against the Japanese in the East. This did not exactly improve the chances for England to ally with Russia, but luckily did not interfere too much in their relationships, and after some time they even turned out becoming allies, together with France, at the end even making military plans together. They also shared the responsibilities of protecting areas, just like England and France who protected both the Mediterranean as well as the Channel separately, making it easier for each country to focus on one area.

    Read More

  • A Brief Comparison Of Girl And The Women's Swimming Pool

    1782 Words  | 4 Pages

    The society aspect of women roles and the duties as a woman. Society plays a role that is shown in a parallel between Girl and the Women’s Swimming Pool. In girl, her role is restricted in the direction by her mother. The restrictions come’s with consequences that she has to follow. These restrictions are guidelines that may or may not help her as a woman but she is subjected to do them in order to survive in a society that is controlled by men.

    Read More

  • A Comprehensive Summary of Alice Munro’s Boys and Girls

    1202 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Alice Munro's The Love Of A Good Woman

    813 Words  | 2 Pages

    In her introduction to Alice Munro’s 1998 volume The Love of a Good Woman, A.S. Byatt notes that “Munro is fluidly inventive in her use of time and tense, as she is in her point of view. She makes long, looping strings of events between birth and death, recomposing events as memory does, but also with shocking artifice” (xv). Indeed, Love’s opening and title story presents the reader with these confusions of time and tense so thoroughly that, since its first publication, Robert Thacker has described it as “a central Munro text,” while Dennis Duffy has lauded it as a “pivotal work in the structure of [Munro’s] fiction” (qtd. in Ross 786). Catherine Sheldrick Ross, meanwhile, asserts that it “challenge[s the reader] to make sense of a text that

    Read More

  • Coming of Age in Alice Munro’s "Boys and Girls"

    1071 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Feminism and Society in "Little Women"

    1718 Words  | 4 Pages

    A. “Reading Little Women.” Temple University Press (1984): 151-65. Rpt in Novels for Students. Ed. Elizabeth Thomason.

    Read More

  • GENDER ROLES IN LITERATURE

    557 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many people think that boys in our culture today are brought up to define their identities through heroic individualism and competition, particularly through separation from home, friends, and family in an outdoors world of work and doing. Girls, on the other hand, are brought up to define their identities through connection, cooperation, self-sacrifice, domesticity, and community in an indoor world of love and caring. This view of different male and female roles can be seen throughout children’s literature. Treasure Island and The Secret Garden are two novels that are an excellent portrayal of the narrative pattern of “boy and girl” books.

    Read More

More about Only a Girl in Boys and Girls by Alice Munro

Open Document