Boys And Girls

A detailed Summary of 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 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.

Munro, Alice. "Boys and Girls." Literature For Composition. New York: Longman, 2000. 714-23.

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, "

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 839
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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