A Woman's Place in "Boys and Girls"

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how the narrator in "Boys and Girls" by Alice Munro begins the story thinking of herself as free: free to do and be whatever she wants. Over the course of the story, however, she realizes that freedom is an illusion and that she will be required to acknowledge and accept society's gender roles whether she resists or not. It looks at how, like Flora, the horse, she yearns to be free and fights against the inevitable, but how, in the end, her fate is sealed, just like Flora's. It shows how Munro is making a point about the nature of our selves and how, although society pushes us in certain directions, we cannot deny the truth of who we essentially are; girls and boys, or men and women, are not the same, and there is no point in pretending we are.

From the Paper:

"The ultimate change in the narrator begins when she watches the farm hand Henry shoot Mack, one of the horses she has grown to love. She watches this with the same eyes that have witnessed foxes being skinned all her life, but inside, she feels differently about Mack's death. She cannot help but notice the horror of his death and it affects her, although she doesn't realize it until later. When it is Flora's turn to be killed, the girl is struck by Flora's free spirit: "It was exciting to see her running, whinnying, going up on her hind legs, prancing and threatening like a horse in a Western movie, an unbroken ranch horse, though she was just an old driver, an old sorrel mare" (p. 771). Here, Flora is free, resisting the confines of her assigned role, breaking free of the chains that hold her."

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