Boys and Girls

This short story is written by Alice Munro; she is a Canadian short-story writer and has won many prizes over her lifetime, prizes such as Man Booker International Prize and a three-time winner of Canada’s Governor General’s Award. When I read this story I was unsure of what exactly was its purpose. I couldn’t really pin point why exactly the story was entitled “Boys and Girls”.  When I read the whole story I mustered together what the story was about, I figured out that the theme was gender roles.

So basically the story is about this young girl; who evidentially remains nameless throughout the piece, and her it talks about her life growing up on a fox farm. She feels trapped by her surroundings and doesn’t know how to get out, this girl only wants to feel like the males in her family but instead is looked on as an outcast.  There is a lot of symbolism present this story, a huge symbol is the foxes that they farm, they represent the girl in a lot of ways. It says that the foxes are locked up in cages and aren’t let out until they are taken to the slaughter house and skinned for their pelts. Much like them this represents the girl’s feelings of being trapped in the farm and her feelings of isolation, she really feels that there is no way for her to get out.

Looking back to the theme of gender roles. The author’s choice to keep the girl nameless shows how girls in the earlier days were looked at as having a little position in society and had only one role and most the time didn’t really get praised for doing the jobs that males were suppose to fulfill. I know this because look at the brother, Laird. Laird is a Scottish word meaning Lord. This shows the reader that he has a higher “rank” than the nameless girl and that he is looked up to and praised for doing the jobs, more than the young girl.

At the end of the story she is called “only a girl”, even though she has been called this throughout the whole piece, this times hits the girl hardest; it’s at this time that she realizes that she will only be just a girl and that as much as she wants to be just like her brothers it won’t happen.

        

        I don’t agree with this, I believe that if something makes you happy you should go out and work your hardest at the thing you enjoy. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t. but overall I did enjoy reading this story and I recommend you; if you haven’t already, to read it and see what you think of the story!