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In "Boys and Girls," what are the girl's feelings towards each parent, their motivations, and their relation to her identity?

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The narrator is aware that she does not fit in, but she does not fully understand why. She senses that her family members do not understand her, but she resents their attempts to control her and so feels more isolated than ever. She claims that it was an accident to let the horse out of its stall, but surely there is some deeper motivation at work here.

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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 what she really craves is independence and the freedom to be her own person and not simply a "girl." 

Let us look at each family member in turn. Her father is a man of few words, but any approval she gets from him is precious. For example, she is intensely embarrassed but proud when her father introduces her to a visiting salesman as his "new hired hand"--this is just the sort of praise she yearns for since it seems to her that her father is aware of her talents and values her for herself. In fact it is not clear what the father thinks of her, and the ease with which he dismisses her at the end of the story suggests that he has no real investment in her.

The mother is her enemy in that the mother wants her to "be a girl" and work with her in the house, even though she plainly hates it. She says of her mother:

My mother, I felt, was not to be trusted. She was kinder than my father and more easily fooled, but you could not depend on her, and the real reasons for the things she said and did were not to be known. She loved me, and she sat up late at night making a dress of the difficult style I wanted, for me to wear when school started, but she was also my enemy. She was always plotting.

Laird, her brother, is also not to be trusted. The narrator, as the older sibling, cares for Laird and tries to make him an ally by inventing rules to keep them safe in their attic bedroom, for example, but she also knows that Laird, as a boy, will eventually supplant her on the farm.

Everyone is defined, more or less, by their role in the work on the farm. You ask about how aware she might be of her situation, and I think she is definitely aware that she is not happy and she is always scrambling to find some sort of emotional support. By the end of the story, she is aware that nobody in the family understands her. I do not think she fully understands why she does the things she does, however. When she lets the horse out, she says, "I did not make any decision to do this; it was just what I did." However, this action seals her fate; knowingly or not, she has demonstrated to her father that she is not to be trusted. After all, as he says at the end of the story when it all comes out, "She's only a girl."

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In Alice Munro's story, "Boys and Girls," the narrator has conflicting emotions about her parents. She aligns with her opposite sex parent, her father. She likes being in his outdoor world, working hard for him, and earning his respect. While he doesn't say much, she feels comfortable with him. Her mother, on the other hand, expresses an interest to have her inside the house, helping with 'women's work,' and the girl says she distrusts her. She doesn't want to do work in the domestic sphere.

Even though her mother is more talkative and tells her stories when she is cheerful, the narrator feels it is a betrayal of sorts for her mother to want her in the kitchen. When her mother tells her father that the brother will be better help when he is older, the narrator is hurt. Later, when it is found out that she let the horse out, the father shows disappointment and distances himself from her, letting her know she will have to switch her alliance to her mother at her own hand.

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