Wild Horses

A detailed Summary of Wild Horses

Alice Munro has a history of writing stories that demonstrate the changing and shifting

of relationships in a world perceived as chaotic and unforgiving. "Boys and Girls" is no

different. This story isn't merely about a girl watching a horse die. This is about a girl

fast approaching her adolescence, and her inability to cope at first.

We never learn her name, but the girl in this story has her major conflict in her role in

the family and how she is supposed to act. The first clue that this is a problem occurs in

paragraph 22, where we learn that the grandmother has certain expectations for "girls".

These include not slamming doors and keeping knees together while sitting. The girl tries

to preserve her "freedom" by slamming doors and sitting awkwardly as often as possible.

This reasoning of girls acting in a certain fashion is emphasized in other places in the

story as well. In paragraph 10, she contrasts her parents and how they relate to her while

they work together. This demonstrates the vast differences in how the adults deal with the

More evidence of this is in paragraph 12, where the girl voices her surprise at seeing

She knows by the way her father talks to her and her mother that if she starts to

illustrated by the relationship of the two ill-fated horses. They are meant to be

at some point he was going to have to deal with the girl's growing up. He had been

noticing her distress about watching the horse die. She doesn't want anyone to know she

very calm. The female horse would startle easy, was violent, and would kick at anyone

the ways that the two genders transform into young adults. This is especially true if you

temporary, she thought it was important. She couldn't have hers, but she could at least

Approximate Word count = 934
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels

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