Boys And Girls (1050 words)

Boys And GirlsIn her story, Boys and Girls, Alice Munro depicts the hardships and successes of the rite
of passage into adulthood through her portrayal of a young narrator and her brother.

Through the narrator, the subject of the profound unfairness of sex-role stereotyping, and
the effect this has on the rites of passage into adulthood is presented. The protagonist in
Munro’s story, unidentified by a name, goes through an extreme and radical initiation into
adulthood, similar to that of her younger brother. Munro proposes that gender
stereotyping, relationships, and a loss of innocence play an extreme, and
often-controversial role in the growing and passing into adulthood for many young
children. Initiation, or the rite of passage into adulthood, is, according to the theme of
Munro’s story, both a mandatory and necessary experience. Alice Munro’s
creation of an unnamed and therefore undignified, female protagonist proposes that the
narrator is without identity or the prospect of power. Unlike the narrator, the young
brother Laird is named ? a name that means lord ? and implies that he, by virtue of his
gender alone, is invested with identity and is to become a master. This stereotyping in
names alone seems to suggest that gender does play an important role in the initiation of
young children into adults. Growing up, the narrator loves to help her father outside with
the foxes, rather than to aid her mother with dreary and peculiarly depressing work done
in the kitchen (425). In this escape from her predestined duties, the narrator looks upon
her mother’s assigned tasks to be endless, while she views the work of her father as
ritualistically important (425). This view illustrates her happy childhood, filled with
dreams and fantasy. Her contrast between the work of her father and the chores of her
mother, illustrate an arising struggle between what the narrator is expected to do and what
she wants to do. Work done by her father is viewed as being real, while that done by her
mother was considered boring. Conflicting views of what was fun and what was expected
lead the narrator to her initiation into adulthood. Unrealistically, the narrator believes
that she would be of use to her father more and more as she got older. However, as she
grows older, the difference between boys and girls becomes more clear and conflicting to
her. Her first experience with this was when a salesman stopped by one day. In the midst
of working for her father, she was introduced as her father’s new hired hand, but the
salesman, instead of smiling benevolently, remarks I thought it was only a girl (425).

Being at the ‘tomboy’ stage, and implying, by the use of ‘stage’ that the condition is a
temporary one that all right-thinking, demurring girls will outgrow, the narrator is once
again confronted with the conflict of gender stereotypes. She shows no intention of
putting away childish androgyny, but rather, shows an increased desire and ability to do a
man’s job ? a tendency that disturbs her mother. It is at this time, that the mother, good
intentionally shackles her daughter to her correct place in the world to prepare her for
stereotypes later on in life. However, after talking with her mother, the narrator realises
that she has to become a girl; A girl was not, as I had supposed, simply what I was; it
was what I had to become (427). Here, the narrator realises that there is no escape from
the pre-determined duties that go along with the passage of a child into being a girl and a
girl into a woman. Knowing that she is expected to become a girl and conform to
society’s beliefs and norms, she expresses her desire to rebel against what is expected. As
with initiation, it is unknown what is lying ahead, but it is known that one must conform to
the expected nomenclature, or face societal ridicule. As for example, when the narrator’s
grandmother is visiting, she explains the do’s and don’ts of being a girl, Girls keep their
knees together when they sit down (427). However, the narrator expresses her resistance
by continue to do things against the norm, thinking that by such measures [she] kept
[herself] free (427). Now exposed to what she must become, the narrator’s freedom is
killed. In many ways, this loss of innocence and freedom can be compared to the horse
that her father raised. In making an effort to aid in the escape of Flora,