Boys and Girls by Alice Munro
"Boys and Girls" is a short story by Alice Munro that explores the complexities of gender roles and the coming-of-age experiences of an eleven-year-old girl living on a fox-breeding farm in Canada. The narrative is presented from the perspective of the young girl, who takes pride in her work alongside her father, engaging in the physical and often harsh realities of farm life. She struggles with her identity as she faces the expectations placed upon her by her mother and society to conform to traditional female roles, which she views as restrictive.
As her younger brother, Laird, begins to assert his own identity, the narrator grapples with feelings of distance from him and her father, leading to a conflict between her childhood fantasies and the pressures of adolescence. The story reaches a critical moment when the narrator must confront the impending death of Flora, a horse she has come to care for, which symbolizes her loss of innocence and the inevitability of her societal role. The ending highlights the patriarchal dismissal of her emotions, as her father’s remark underscores the societal view of girls and their perceived weaknesses. Through this poignant tale, Munro illustrates the tension between personal desires and societal expectations, making it a rich text for exploring themes of gender, identity, and familial relationships.
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Boys and Girls by Alice Munro
First published: 1968
Type of plot: Coming of age
Time of work: World War II
Locale: Southwestern Ontario, Canada
Principal Characters:
The narrator , an unnamed eleven-year-old girlLaird , her younger brotherMother , a homemakerFather , a fox breederHenry , the family's hired man
The Story
The narrator, an eleven-year-old girl living on a fox-breeding farm with her parents and younger brother, details the work of the farm: the killing, skinning, and preparation of the silver foxes; their feeding and watering; and the killing of horses to get meat to feed the foxes. All this work is a normal and everyday part of life to the narrator, who takes great pride in helping her father with the outdoor chores. She blushes with pleasure when her father introduces her as his "hired man" but dreads the dreary and monotonous work inside the house. She is apprehensive about her mother's plans for her when she grows older and must take on more traditional female roles. Though she loves her mother, she also sees her as an "enemy" who is plotting to take her away from more important pursuits. The girl also tries hard to avoid her grandmother, who constantly nags her to behave in more ladylike ways.
During the winter the family keeps two horses until they must be killed for meat for the foxes. Mack is an old and indifferent horse; Flora is a high-stepping and nervous mare. The girl has never seen a horse killed before, and curiosity compels her and her brother to watch their father shoot Mack. Though she tries to shrug off Mack's death as inevitable, she worries about its effect on Laird. She also feels ashamed, wary, and restrained around her father for the first time.
Other things are changing. Laird is now big and strong enough to match his sister in a fight. The narrator starts wondering if she will be pretty when she grows up; she tries to fix up her side of the room that she shares with Laird to make it more adult; she feels increasingly distant from both Laird and her father but is still not entirely allied with her mother. In the past she fantasized about being a hero or a rescuer; now she daydreams about being rescued.
The story climaxes when the narrator realizes that Flora will be shot the next day. She is playing with Laird in the field when Flora breaks away from her father and Henry, and tries to escape toward the lane. After her father shouts to her to run and shut the gate, she reaches the gate in time to prevent Flora from getting away. When Flora runs toward her, however, she opens the gate as wide as she can. As Laird and the men go out in a truck to catch Flora, the girl puzzles over why she has disobeyed her father and sees that she is no longer "on his side."
When the men return after shooting and skinning Flora, Laird announces that his sister is responsible for the horse's escape. When told that his daughter is crying, the father says that "she's only a girl." The words both forgive the girl and push her aside.
Bibliography
Franzen, Jonathan. "Alice's Wonderland." The New York Times Book Review, November 14, 2004, 1, 14-16.
Howells, Coral Ann. Alice Munro. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1998.
McCulloch, Jeanne, and Mona Simpson. "The Art of Fiction CXXXVII." Paris Review 131 (Summer, 1994): 226-264.
Moore, Lorrie. "Leave Them and Love Them." The Atlantic Monthly 294, no. 5 (December, 2004): 125.
Munro, Sheila. Lives of Mothers and Daughters: Growing Up with Alice Munro. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2001.
Ross, Catherine Sheldrick. Alice Munro: A Double Life. Toronto: ECW Press, 1992.
Simpson, Mona. "A Quiet Genius." The Atlantic Monthly 288, no. 5 (December, 2001): 126.