Boys And Girls Essay, Research Paper
BOYS AND GIRLS
Alice Munro’s short story, “Boys and Girls,” is a story of the way of life in the 1940s, where men and women had specific roles controlled by gender. They were expected to learn those roles as children and conform to them as adults. As the title suggested, males and females played separate and distinct roles from each other, with no one role blending into the other. Instead of saying “Girls and Boys,” Munro chose to say “Boys and Girls.” He is superior and she is subservient to him.
Although Munro narrated the story through the voice of the girl, she did not give the girl a name. Her role, as a girl, was not important. Interestingly, Munro named the boy “Laird,” another name for “Lord.” The narrator wanted the reader to know that even though the boy was the younger of the two, he was superior, or Lord, over his older sister. Also interesting was how the narrator began the tale. “My father was a fox farmer,” not “I grew up on a fox farm.” The narrator, instead of focusing on herself, gave her father center stage.
The men dominated the household. When Henry, the hired man, was introduced, the narrator detailed how disgusting he was. “He would cough and cough until his narrow face turned scarlet, then he took the lid off the stove and shot out a great clot of phlegm straight into the flames.” Her mother said nothing. The woman did not have control even over the hired man in her own kitchen. The men could do what ever they wanted wherever they were. “She (mother) disliked the whole pelting operation and wished it did not have to take place in the house.” The mother would not dare suggest to the father that they could pelt in the barn.
The jobs that the men and women were responsible for further separated the sexes. The mother “did not often come out of the house unless it was to do something hang out the wash or dig potatoes.” The narrator found the work done in the house, where the women belonged, to be “endless, dreary and peculiarly depressing.” That was in sharp contrast to how she saw the work of the men. Her father’s work was “ritualistically important.” His work supported the family. His work produced the money. When her mother went out to the barn to talk to her father, which was an unusual thing, her father stood listening, “but with an air of wanting to get on with his real work.” There was no glory in the work of the women.
The narrator wanted guts and glory and was resentful of the role that was being forced upon her. Her grandmother insisted on her playing the correct role. “Girls keep their knees together when they sit down.” “Girls don’t slam doors like that.” “That’s none of girls business.” When told all of these things, she did the exact opposite. In doing so, she thought that she would remain free. Freedom was also the reason she opened the gate for Flora, the horse, to escape being shot and cut up. She gave Flora something she herself would never have.
Eventually the narrator began to change and conform to the stereotypical role of the female. She began to find her father’s work dreary and found herself doing more work in the house. “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…” Also, her brother began to take on more of the work of the men, instead of just running off to play. “We shot old Flora, and cut her up in fifty pieces.” Laird also started to feel his superiority over both his mother and his sister. Near the end of the story, he told of how Flora had escaped from the yard and when his mother told him not to come to her table “like that,” with dirt and blood all over his hands, he did not move until his father made him go. This, more than any other thing in the story, demonstrated male dominance in 1940s society. Although his mother told him to wash, he listened only to his father, the authority figure. His mother had only a secondary, subservient role to his father.
Alice Munro demonstrated her points very thoroughly. Males were the superior, authoritative heads of families, while females were paid no attention at all. Those roles were learned in childhood, Munro depicted Laird as a little boy who showed no concern to dismissing his mother and the girl as resenting the subservient female role, and perfected in adulthood, the grandmother, when she visited, reiterated what girls did and did not do. Munro used the girl and her brother to show that in the 1940s men and women, girls and boys, were not equal. They were very far from it.
WORK CITED
Munro, Alice. “Boys and Girls.” Literature For Composition. New York: Longman, 2000. 714-23.
Другие работы по теме:
A day at an Russia school
Автор: Разное It is Monday morning. Soon it will be 9 o'clock and the boys and girls are coming to school after Saturday and Sunday which are free days. Some of them are walking to school, and some come on their bicycles. Others, who live very far from the school, come by bus.
The Never Ending Love Essay Research Paper
The Never Ending Love It was a cold and dreary day. One of those days where you wish you could just stay at home, and in your bed. Everything was going great until I found myself following the same path that I had been for some time now. It was the long and dreary path that had plagued me many times before. No, It was no road or sidewalk, but it was the path of sorrow that beset me every day around this time.
Why Essay Research Paper After seeing the
Why? Essay, Research Paper After seeing the film The Virgin Suicides, I found myself asking the question why. While talking to other students about the film again came the question, why? Why would these girls, with so much to look forward to, commit suicide? This question, “why” is the central theme of the whole film.
Boys Lives Essay Research Paper As everyone
Boys Lives Essay, Research Paper As everyone knows, within the human race there are males and there are females. We all figure out what our gender identity is at a young age. For boys, male toys like building blocks and trucks and sports like baseball and soccer help a boy form into what society considers to be a man.
The Haunted House Essay Research Paper The
The Haunted House Essay, Research Paper The Haunted House It all begin on a Friday the 13th on a Halloween night. Stella Ayana, and Sabrina were getting dressed for Trick or Treating. They were going to meet down by the pond with their classmates named Derekand David. Derek
LOTF Essay Research Paper Introduction
LOTF Essay, Research Paper Introduction The first main problem the boys have in the novel Lord of the Flies is that they are unprepared for survival on an uninhabited
Sex Roles Essay Research Paper Are boys
Sex Roles Essay, Research Paper Are boys and girls treated differently by the teacher in classroom situations? This is a question that has frustrated many psychologists and educators. In many cases, I think gender does play a significant role in the education process. Teachers may unconsciously give more attention to the boys in a classroom.
Images Of Freedom And Confinement In
“Boys And Girls” Essay, Research Paper Many of the images and events in “Boys and Girls” have to do with freedom or the lack of it. The narrator defines freedom in a number of situations. In this story, the male world represents freedom while the female world represents confinement. In the narrator’s perspective, her mother was confined to the kitchen of their house and “never came out unless it was to hang out the wash or dig potatoes.” On the contrary, the narrator’s father was not confined to a specific place and worked outside killing and skinning foxes.
Boys And Girls Comparative Ess Essay Research
Paper The movie remake of Alice Munro s short story Boys and Girls fails to represent the author s intention; in comparison to the short story. The movie eliminates crucial events, which enables the audience to have impression of what the girl is feeling and show sympathy for her. As a result of eliminating the scene in which the horse is getting killed; the audience is unaware of how the girl copes and is affected by the situation.
Puberty Essay Research Paper Let
Puberty Essay, Research Paper Let’s talk about puberty. What is the first thing that comes into our minds when we say puberty? Well, sex is the most common thought that pops out from the head of many people. But there is much more than sex to puberty. Puberty is a very unique and important evolving stage of all males and females.
Single Sex Ed Essay Research Paper Single
Single Sex Ed Essay, Research Paper Single Sex Education? Why would anyone want to go to an all girls’ school? This is a question I have often pondered. Can you imagine school without the obnoxious comments from boys, football games, and gossiping about boys? This doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, does it? You girls may think about this and decide there are no advantages to an all girls’ school, but in reality, all girls’ schools have many.
Saint John Bosco Essay Research Paper John
Saint John Bosco Essay, Research Paper John Bosco was born in Turin, Italy, on August 16, 1815. His parents were poor farmers, but his father died when he was two years old, but John was too young to know what happened, and it forced his mother, Margaret, to raise him along with 3 other children and taught them the importance of their faith.
Miss Everetts Boys Essay Research Paper Miss
Miss Everetts Boys Essay, Research Paper Miss Everett?s Boys My reaction to Miss Everett?s Boys is one of disgust and utter disbelief. I feel that the government is responsible for the colored men who lost their lives to syphilis during the time of the Tuskegee experiments located within Tuskegee, Alabama.
The Lowell Girls The Female Workforce Essay
, Research Paper Lowell girls worked in textile mills. They were called Lowell girls because the textile mills were owned my Mr. Lowell. These girls became the first female workforce.
War Against Boys Essay Research Paper Voices
War Against Boys Essay, Research Paper Voices, I hear voices! Are girls of adolescence age hearing voices or are their voices not being heard? What is Carol Gilligan really trying to say in her study about Pre-teen and teen-age girls? She says the study indicates that society is silencing girls in this age range.
Diary Entry
: “A Girl’s Life Long Ago” Essay, Research Paper Dear Diary, I have to leave soon to go to my new job. I?m very happy to have gotten a baby-sitting job at the Hagen?s. These days, its so hard for a young girl to find a job, unless you are someone famous. I consider myself lucky to live in a nice house with a good family.
Puberty Essay Research Paper Up until the
Puberty Essay, Research Paper Up until the age of nine or ten years, there is little difference in the physical appearance of a boy or a girl, except the genitals. Boys and girls behave differently but this is mostly as a result of ’socialisation’ or the way other people have molded the child to behave like a girl or like a boy.
Girls And Boys Essay Research Paper Girls
Girls And Boys Essay, Research Paper Girls and Boys For my entire life I have noticed a prejudice between the genders. Constantly I hear guys saying ?I?m so sick of girls!?, or girls saying ?All men are jerks!?. I personally don?t understand. To me girls are the best people to be around, they always smell good and you don?t have to worry about proving who can drink a beer the fastest or who can beat the crap out of who.
And Then There Were None By Agatha
Christie Essay, Research Paper I recently read a mystery book by the name of “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie. I read this book because I have read other books by Agatha Christie that were pretty well written. Ten people are invited to an island, called “Indian Island”,by letters that were signed by people they had met before.
Moby Dick Essay Research Paper Exploitation and
Moby Dick Essay, Research Paper Exploitation and discrimination of the female began when god made Adam and Eve. By not making Eve the same way he made Adam god said to society she is not you’re equal she is different.
Gymnastics Essay Research Paper The use of
Gymnastics Essay, Research Paper The use of Motor Skills in Gymnastics Gymnastics involves many movements of the human body. There are varies exercises and performances completed in gymnastics which are performed at different levels of motor skills. This is what allows us to see how children advance in motor skills.
School Girls Essay Research Paper In the
School Girls Essay, Research Paper In the book School Girls by Peggy Orenstein, the focus is on young adolescent girls in middle school, and the effects that the ?Hidden Curriculum? and other elements have on their self esteem. ?Hidden Curriculum teaches girls to value silence and compliance.? (pg.35) The hidden curriculum is a theory that boys often get more attention than girls in the classroom, and that even if it is negative attention, the girls learn that they are not as important, and they eventually give up hope, and stop speaking out in class.
Children And Violence Essay Research Paper JuvenilesChildren
Children And Violence Essay, Research Paper Juveniles Children and violence, were does it start? Some experts say that children from violent environments at home are more likely to commit crimes then others. Some very young children will witness crime at the home and think that it is ok, not knowing what is right and wrong.
Ode To Boys Essay Research Paper We
Ode To Boys Essay, Research Paper We like them But do they like us The ones we do never fuss They don’t stop in And we wonder why We stress, we bitch We sometimes cry
Beware Of The Fish Essay Research Paper
BEWARE OF THE FISH BOOK BY ;Gordan Korman ‘Beware The Fish’ is one of the funniest books I have ever read in my life. It is about two boys named Bruno and Boots
Lord Of The Flies 10 Essay Research
Paper Lord of the Flies In William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, a group of boys revert from civilized children to savages. The boys are stranded on a tropical island with no adults in authority to tell them what to do. Only one tool, a knife, and their intelligence provide the boys with the ways to survive.
Opinion Girls Vs Boys Sports Essay
, Research Paper Girl?s Sports vs. Boy?s Sports I am a 16-year-old female athlete at Branford High School. I am a goalkeeper for the soccer team at school and have played number one doubles my freshman year for the Varsity Tennis Team. In past years I have played Field Hockey, Basketball, Softball, and swimming.
The Hardy Boys Demolition Mission Essay Research
Paper The Hardy boys I am most similar too Joe Hardy in the book The Hardy boys: the demolition mission by Franklin W. Dixon. First of all we are both similiar because we are both smart. We are both kind
Gender Equality Report On Education Essay Research
Paper Gender Equality Report on Education This report is designed to inform on Gender Equity in Schools and educational fact; it was produced to raise awareness to those who seek knowledge in this area. StudentsSchools are working to become more gender equitable. Surveys show girls are loosing out to boys in areas such as who takes advancement classes, who graduates college and even the salary of a post college job.
Brave New Girls Essay Research Paper Brave
Brave New Girls Essay, Research Paper Brave New Girls This story sets a great example for teenage girls. All the TV shows and media that Debbie Stoller refers to are good types of media that give the girls girl power. Today girls can be influenced by a lot that is shown on television and it effects their lives. All the role models play a very important part in teenager’s lives.
Genders Essay Research Paper The early childhood
Genders Essay, Research Paper The early childhood socialization plays a major role in a person’s life. Socialization is best described as “a process by which a society’s values and norms, including those pertaining to gender is taught and learned”. This is perhaps the first thing that a child goes thought.
Sex Anybody Essay Research Paper Sex Anybody
Sex, Anybody? Essay, Research Paper Sex, Anybody? By: Mel Antonio Man, Woman, Dog or Tree, On the menu of sexuality. What will it be, In this age of immorality? Today’s special: S& M, With Monica look-a-like On a big Harley bike. Or you can have toys, They’re not for little boys. They vibrate, They gyrate, They compensate.