Boys and Girls

All the texts treat the theme of individualism or living "free from convention" problematically. One way to approach writing the essay is to pick a text, and move from the particulars of the text...

One of the themes of the story is that even though you want something badly, it might not turn out to be as good as you thought. Most children have to struggle with gender identity a bit as they...

The biggest irony in the story is the fact that the eleven-year-old girl narrator eventually becomes what she'd always despised. Previously, she'd always been a bit of a tomboy, gladly helping her...

The conflict in the story is character-versus-society. In Boys and Girls, the unnamed narrator is a girl who lives on a fox farm. Her father is a fox farmer, while her mother is a homemaker. The...

A strong thesis statement is a critical part to writing a cohesive essay! There are three essential components to a thesis statement: 1. The subject (informs the reader who or what the essay will...

In "Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro, there are two sets of contrasting themes: life and death and masculine and feminine—or boys and girls. The author goes into detail discussing the foxes that the...

The narrator now feels a negative connotation to the word “girl” as she develops a better understanding of gender roles. Part of growing up is determining your place in the world. Gender roles are...

I think as much as the similarities between her and Flora, the possibility that Flora represents for the narrator also make her let the mare escape in Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls”...

The narrator of Alice Munro's "Boys and Girls" identifies with her father and wants to help him in every way possible. She enjoys working on his fox farm, where he has two horses, Mack and Flora....

At the climax of “Boys and Girls,” the unnamed narrator acts out of a place of both rebellion and resignation. The story takes place as she’s coming to understand the gender roles to which she is...

During the course of the story, the narrator gains more awareness of her identity and situation, in part through her own perception and in part through reaction to her parents' and brother's...

The workings of the farm where the little girl lives and on which her family works could be said to symbolize the rigidity of gender roles. This is a place where everyone has a specific function:...

It could be said that the narrator is unnamed because the author wants to make general points about the nature of gender roles and relations between the sexes. In other words, the experiences of...

The narrator and the horse named Flora share a few traits but are more different than they are similar. Both are female, and both seem high-spirited. The narrator is young during the period of the...

Throughout “Boys and Girls,” a strong gender division of labor and comportment is revealed as the protagonist grows up and is expected to confine herself to appropriate gender patterns. On the...

"Boys and Girls" is a short story by Canadian author Alice Munro that first appeared in Dance of the Happy Shades, a collection of fifteen short stories by Munro published in 1968 by Ryerson Press.

“Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro is set on a fox farm in the early twentieth century, where a young girl lives with her parents and younger brother Laird. On a traditional farmstead, the roles for...

Ultimately, the narrator learns that neither of her parents (or even her brother, Laird) are to be trusted. She takes sides with her father and takes pride in her work on the farm doing chores, but...

Although gender roles are an integral theme in Munro’s “Boys and Girls,” the subplot involving the two horses, Mack and Flora, intimates at other subtle yet essential thematic components of the...

The narrator's epiphany—the sudden awareness or feeling of knowledge of something new—arrives at the end of the story, when she realizes that she cannot "protest" her father's statement that "She's...

A good way to begin developing a thesis is to try to remember the parts of the story that made an impression on you and then think about why that was the case. In a broad way, the title of the...

In Munro's story, "Boys and Girls," the first paragraph focuses on the father's work as a fox farmer. The father skins and sells the pelts. They are given calendars of heroes and adventurers to...

The story "Boys and Girls" by Alice Munro is about societal differences for different genders, and the horses' genders are no exception. As a child, the narrator imagines stories about herself that...

A critical analysis of Alice Munro’s story “Boys and Girls” involves looking at each element of the story and seeing how well it helps fulfill the story’s purpose. Let’s talk first about the...

The story Boys and Girls is about a young girl who refuses to accept that boys have a certain role in life and girls have a very different role. She refuses to do kitchen work and would rather feed...

Comparable features of both stories are that the main character is female and that she undergoes a transformative experience that is related to liberation from gendered expectations. In Alice...

In Alice Munro's story, "Boys and Girls," gender roles are examined and the power between the two genders is highlighted. In the narrator's family, there are two spheres--outside and inside....

Setting is used to illuminate gendered experience in "Boys and Girls" by providing a traditionally male-dominated environment against which the narrator's behavior can be analyzed. The setting is a...

By allowing Flora to escape, a horse due to be shot to provide meat for the foxes on the farm, the girl narrator lives up to the traditional expectations of society concerning how women are...

In this coming-of-age story, the narrator lives in a society that has defined roles for girls. They were expected to be lady-like in their behavior and to learn the skills needed to be a good...

The narrator tells us that her fantasies always involved riding and shooting, although she has only been on a horse twice. They generally involve heroic acts on her part: she rescues people from a...

In Alice Munro's story "Boys and Girls," gender roles are explored and one of the ways the narrator finds her voice is through her stories. At night after she and her brother sing, she makes up...

This is an interesting question because it can be answered in two different ways. It can be answered in regards to how the readers can imagine the characters within the story. It can also be...

The quotation from “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro we're going to analyze is the following: Whatever thoughts and stories my father had were private, and I was shy of him and would never ask him...

In "Boys and Girls," the ultimate insult is when the father dismisses the narrator as "Just a girl." In the context of the story, being a "girl" not only means that the narrator will be relegated...

One quotation of course comes at the end of the story with the narrator's father's dismissal of her as "only a girl." The central theme of the story is what being a "girl" really means in the...

“Boys and Girls” is set on a silver-fox farm situated against a background of black pine forests and rivers. It is a rough and rather primitive environment which is often very cold. Although the...

Mack is an old horse, and it's common practice on farms for old horses to be taken out and shot when they're no longer deemed useful. Sadly, this is what happens to Mack. His meat is to be used to...

Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls” deals with a lot of issues regarding identity, especially that of gender. The fact that Munro is a woman from the same background as the narrator informs...