Growing up on a farm teaches many life lessons that continue on throughout life. The roles, duties, and expectations guide everyday life and allow for a work ethic later on in life. However, sometimes it is best to challenge reality and the expectations a person has to endure because of their gender. In Alice Munro’s story “ Boys and Girls”, the main character has to learn about the harshness of the world not from the death of farm animals but the expectations of her gender and the roles she will have to partake later in life even though she does not want to. Her family and the Setting are the primary factors in this because they are what allow her to discover the message while challenging her from achieving her own beliefs. The theme of …show more content…
Gender is important in the story because the men take on more masculine traditional roles while the women are expected to be more feminine and do things more around the house. The reason why the main character has to outside chores with her father is because her little brother is not old enough. Her mother and grandmother pick up on her tomboyish nature and try to instruct her to change her ways and act her gender. The main character has to deal with her gender issues and the sexism she lives with “ The word girl had formerly seemed to me innocent and unburdened, like the word child; now it appeared that it was no such thing. A girl was not, as I had supposed, simply what I was; it was what I had to become. It was a definition, always touched with emphasis, with reproach and disappointment. Also it was a joke on me(142)”. The main character does not take into account how her mother might want someone to bond with until she is older. Because of her immaturity she has a bad relationship with her parents and her brother even though her thoughts are justifiable. The story is split between the parents versus the children on the relationship they all have and how they contribute to each other’s character. The main character is a strong and passionate little girl who is not affected by seeing the deaths of farm animals which are given humane names but cries out her because of her inability to do the things she wants because of the expectations of her gender. Her father and mother are traditional in their outlooks and in their portrayal of farmhouse life. The family represents typically working class american family that is built on their faith, work ethic, place in the world. They have possibly conservative closed minded views that may cause them to believe the things they do about gender
Throughout this book there are countless examples of the common gender issue in today’s society exploited. Today it is widely believed of equality in rights for all people regardless of heritage, race and gender. A majority of people in the world are in the support of female lead characters and an increase in the books regarding females. As time continues literature has introduced female leads with problems outside the typical house or friend issues. The only female characters introduced in the book with at least one quote is
Their characteristics of their actions and words show the relationship that these people have within their families. And it was not a caring-and-love one family relationship. They let their tradition tear family apart, which they can stop if they are willing to do it. Throughout reading this short story, it informs the audiences that each individual character in this story have similar characteristics--loneliness-- except children, who does not fully understand family bonds. This story also shows their appearance of selfishness.
The situations take place in the story are evidence for the theme. First, the theme
She has to help take care of their children because the mother just lays in bed all day, the only reason they adopted her was because needed her to be mother since the mother wasn’t a good. She is also expected to help cook dinner out of whatever Mr. Grote brought home. She then is almost raped by Mr. Grote which Mrs. Grote makes her leave after seeing then sends her out of the hose where she has to walk four miles in the cold to a school house. As she is leaving hose she thinks “ I leave any shred of my childhood on the rough planks of the living room floor” (Kline152). This is mainly her motherly phase and becoming a young adult, but all of the cooking and cleaning skills help at the boarding house for women where she can have a reason to stay there.
I think I do.’ He smiles. ‘For the first time in your life’” (Friesen 32). On the contrary, in “Boys and Girls”, characterization is shown through the disputed sexism throughout the story. The female narrator, feels that her female role models such as her mother and grandmother help create who she becomes.
The theme, life should be lived to the fullest, is shown throughout the
The author uses a theme to convey the central idea of the importance and effects of a person’s individuality on both their freedom and euphoria. Examples can be found in the text that clearly shows how the author uses a theme to develop the central idea
The traditional gender roles are noticeable in the novel because the women were either in the homes or in the Red Center. The men could have different kinds of jobs and even rise to a higher social status. Women were to remain the same all through their
Theme is the message about life or human nature that is “the focus” in the story that the writer tells ( Glossary of Literary Terms 3). A theme in this story would be “Love and Blindness”. This falls under the theme category because it is saying love itself changes the way you are as a person but it also has its blindness. The “blindness” is not so much of not being able to see them physically but how they truly are as a person. A person can be very depressing, arrogant, or even abusive but the person in love will see past it hence the term blind.
Many critics agree on one fact about Canadian author Alice Munro: one of her most notable qualities in regards to her work is the distinct use of realism in her writing. Her writing provides a strong sense of familiarity to the reader, while also containing stronger metaphorical meanings that one can note when they begin to closely look at her work. Her short story “Boys and Girls” portrays the socialization of a young girl, once very close to her father and unaware of any sort of gender bias within her society, into a young woman with a pessimistic view of femininity and her expected position in society. This story shows the socialization process in a way that makes it easy to recognize, illustrating circumstances that the reader can notice the blatant sexism and misogyny; however, its portrayal is extremely realistic, allowing the reader to recall how oblivious they may have been in the past during times that they have been impacted by social biases in our world. Critics of Munro typically agree on her overall theme of femininity and coming of age in her writings; “Boys and Girls” emphasizes the ways in which young girls are socialized into a seemingly natural understanding of the sexist expectations and gender roles.
Can Societal Gender Roles Limit an Individual? A man is supposed to be strong, powerful, and well respected. What if all genders were seen in the same light? In most societies, past and present, men are viewed as the dominant gender.
Comparing Boys and Girls and Emma Watson’s speech for her HeForShe campaign Gender is not referred “to sex, but to this set of prescribed behavior,” as said by Marlene Goldman’s “Penning in the Bodies” (Goldman). There are many rules set upon an individual as to what is acceptable and what is not. The short story Boys and Girls by Alice Munro focuses on the implications the narrator had to endure on her journey to womanhood by reason of gender stereotypes. Emma Watson’s speech for the HeForShe campaign targets on abolishing gender inequality. Despite inequity, there is a myriad of comparable traits that are shared by humans which portrays our personality.
Phrabakar and K. Venkat Satish (2011) said that, “Alice Munro is a forthright feminist fiction writer who uses the short story form as a medium to portray the sad conditions of women living in the landscape of small town, Ontario, Canada where she has been brought up and her stories voice woman’s feeling towards society from feminist perspective”. So, ‘Boys and Girls’ short story highlighted the issue of feminism the most in which at that time, society did not consider men and women are at the same level. In this story, the narrator is unnamed while his little brother is named Laird which means ‘land owner’. The name symbolized how the male child was superior in the parent’s eyes and in general. Along with that, the name also symbolizes the difference between the sexes when this story took place.
The novel "Little Women " portraits the difficult journey from childhood to adulthood from four teenaged sisters Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy called the March girls, and how they survive growing up in a difficult time highlighting the inferiority of women as compared to men with the ideas explored throughout the novel being women 's strive between familial duty and personal maturation, the menace of gender labeling, and the need of work. As the novel develops it is fascinating that Louisa May Alcott writes "Little Women," reflecting on her own life and many of the experience of growing up during the nineteenth century. Jo 's character is a replication of Alcott herself with her speaking directly through the protagonist. Social expectations played a important role for women with the idea in which you had to marry young and create a new family which Meg does; be submissive and devoted to one’s guardians and own family, that Beth is; focus on one’s art, pleasure, and people, as Amy does at first; and struggle to live both a dedicated family life and a significant accomplished life, as Jo does. Both Beth and Meg obey to society’s expectations of the role that women should play, Amy and Jo at first try to get away from these limitations and grow their uniqueness.
The role of women in literature crosses many broad spectrums in works of the past and present. Women are often portrayed as weak and feeble individuals that submit to the situations around them, but in many cases women are shown to be strong, independent individuals. This is a common theme that has appeared many times in literature. Across all literature, there is a common element that causes the suffering and pain of women. This catalyst, the thing that initiates the suffering of women, is essentially always in the form of a man.