Girl And Girls By Alice Munro

After reading “A&P” by John Updike and Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls”, a centralized theme arose. Each story’s protagonist demonstrates a unique internal struggle centered on the restrictions society places upon them. Even though the short stories written by John Updike and Alice Munro are remarkably different from each other, it is possible for a reader to interpret similarities between the two.

When we are adolescents we see the world through our parents' eyes.  We struggle to define ourselves within their world, or to even break away from their world.  Often, the birth of our "self" is defined in a moment of truth or a moment of heightened self-awareness that is the culmination of a group of events or the result of a life crisis or struggle.  In literature we refer to this birth of "self" as an epiphany.  Alice Munro writes in "Boys and Girls" about her own battle to define herself.  She is torn between the "inside" world of her mother and the "outside" world of her father.  In the beginning her father's world prevails, but by the finale, her mother's world invades her

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.

In Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls”, the author explains the transition from being a tomboy girl to becoming a woman. The protagonist is

All guys have a type when it comes to the “perfect girl”. Colin Singleton’s “perfect” girl was girls named Katherine. Colin has been dumped nineteen times exactly all by girls named Katherine. In first grade Colin enrolled in public school, he was having social problems with making friends and everyone always picked on him. His parents always pushed him to be better and to have friends he said that “ Both Colin and his parents were utterly pleased and relieved when, just after the start of third grade, Colin Singleton proved his sociological well being by winning the heart of the prettiest eight year old girl in all of Chicago. Katherine came over Colin’s house one night and she asked him to be her boyfriend, Colin agreed and she had kissed

“Boys and Girls,” written by Alice Munro, follows a young girl growing up on a farm and struggling to be her own person while meeting the expectations of her parents. She has a younger brother named Laird, whom she is often compared to. She spends lots of time helping her father in the barn, even though her mother really wants her in the house doing more feminine chores. The emphasis on girl’s vs boy’s chores, plays a major role in the story and how the children are treated. Gender roles or stereotypes make writing more interesting and make stories captivating by relating to everyday life allowing the reader to place themselves into the story. Gender roles factor in everyday life and even without knowing how much if effects children, society places the gender labels on everything.

Gender role is a concept that has existed in society since the beginning of civilization. Although women are said to have equal opportunity in modern society, the traditional view of gender still remain in present day America. This lingering notion left over from ancient society has become a problem especially in the twentieth century. The contemporary view of gender roles is highlighted in Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls” as the narrator comes to realize gender role as unchangeable and unable to be affected by actions.

Throughout history, men and women have had certain roles and duties that are expected to be fulfilled. Alice Munro’s short story Boys and Girls illustrates the unfairness of these expectations that are given to both genders in the sense of how they are supposed to behave simply based upon their sex. The little girl narrates the story as one who is put down by her family for not wanting to participate in the activities girls were supposed to engage in, in accordance to the social norm. “A girl was not, as I had supposed, simply what I was; it was what I had to become” (Munro 149). This quote from Munro’s story demonstrates the sadness and confusion that the girl felt when she realized she was supposed was to supposed to be different.

In the short story “Boys and Girls,” Alice Munro illustrates a story of a young girl who details her daily life on a fox farm. She describes the roles that men and women are expected to carry out within her life. Her father takes care of the work outside to support the family while her mother stays inside to take care of the house. I chose this passage because it illustrates how gender roles are constructed into one’s mind and implies how these constructs are taught not biological. The girl narrates that growing up she thought the word girl was unmarked of responsibilities like the word child.

In the short story “Boys and Girls”, Alice Munro suggested that the need of security can be contradictory to an individual’s desire of independence through the contrast between narrator’s interior thought of being an independent self-sacrificing hero in conflict with the others’ compulsion of being a dependent stereotype of girl. During the time of the story, frame of society is rigid, and there were no motions around the gender rules; therefore, women seems to be designated to live as housemaids in the, “endless, dreary and peculiarly depressing” kitchen while relay on men in the house for living expenses. The narrator however, has a different attitude toward the society. She found the word girl seemed, “innocent and unburdened like the word

In the Book the Only Girl in School, by Natalie Stanford, Claire is the only in the whole school because her best friend moved. Her other friend at school is ignoring her, and now she doesn’t have any friends other than the boy that has a major crush on her. They live on a small island NAME OF ISLAND which used to be a smugglers pub. There is a ghost on the island, and in the end of the story they found a treasure chest in Claire’s shed. The whole book is Clair writing letters to her friend Bess what happens every day in fifth

Mathew Henry, a non-conformist clergyman, once said, “The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.” The short story Boys and Girls written by Alice Munro is a story telling about how women were treated in the 1960s. The story depicts a life of a young girl who is beginning to be expected to act like a typical young lady, but refuses to give in to the close-minded culture. The girl begins to see how differently her brother, Laird, and she are being treated by their mother, father, and grandmother. The theme of the story could be interpreted in many different ways.

The theme of “Boys and Girls” describes the stereotyped gender roles, where the boy is often seen as the strong hero, while the girl is seen as the damsel in distress. Therefore, I believe these stories suggest that she is dissatisfied in the world she currently lives in, and has a desire to break free of it. This suggests that she does not feel like she has control in her current life and that she wants to have a role of leadership. This is demonstrated when she says “These stories were about myself...they took place in a world that was recognizably mine, yet one that presented opportunities for courage, boldness, self-sacrifice” (47). I would suggest that the world she lives in causes her to feel as though she is very disposable and of not much importance. Moreso, these feelings eventually manifest into constant worry and deeply rooted anger. Thus, it leads me to believe that these stories are the narrators “escape” where she can be all that she wishes. I believe that in her perfect world, she would be seen as an equal to her brother and would not be demeaned for showing emotion through something such as

The Other Boleyn Girl is a 2008 feature film based on the ambitious rise and fall of Anne Boleyn and her family. The two sisters Anne and Mary Boleyn fight for the heart and bed of King Henry VIII of England only to find heartache and betrayal in their path. Becoming with child as well as becoming Queen of England was the beginning of Anne’s descent. Having a miscarriage of a son and trying to convince her brother George to have carnal relations with her to get her re-pregnant was high treason, she along with her brother were found guilty and beheaded (1:41:25-1:41:39/1:48:00-1:48:30). Anne Boleyn’s refusal of Henry causes him to force himself upon her in a fit of rage. The history of Anne and Henry’s courtship is well known, there is no evidence of this rape ever occurring. We will be looking at historical facts to see if the rape of Anne Boleyn occurred and to see if the movie portrayed the relationship between Henry and Anne accurately.

In Alice Munroe’s “Boys and Girls” the narrator’s mother is viewed as a stereotypical traditional housewife as opposed to James Joyce’s Mrs. Mooney in “The Boarding House”. Mrs. Mooney is seen as more of a modern mother. This essay contrasts the modern and traditional woman by explaining the stereotypes associated with each, as is evident in