Boys and Girls
By Alice Munro
(NOBEL PRIZE OF LITERATURE 2013)
1. Two important things happen at the end. How did you feel when the narrator's father dismissed her as "only a girl? How did you feel about the girl's reaction? I felt a lot of helplessness and frustration, and after the girl's reaction I felt sadness, because even though she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps, she couldn't because she was "only a girl."
2. One of the conflicts in the story takes place between the narrator and her mother. What does the mother expect of her daughter? Why does the narrator feel that her mother is her "enemy"? The mother hopes that the narrator will stay at home more time to help her with household chores. She feels that her mother is her enemy because she does not support her, but rather she encourages her father to believe that she is not useful in "men's" tasks.
3. Why does the girl find her father's work more interesting than her mother's?
Because the girl wants to do the entertaining things that her father does: like taking care of and hunting animals. Instead, she sees her mother and how boring the activities she does around the house look.
4. After the girl watches her father shoot Mack, how does her attitude toward men's work change? How would you account for this change? The death of Mack makes the narrator realize that she is different from her father and her brother. The narrator understands that she cannot simply follow her father but will have to work her own identity out for herself.
5. What other changes does the girl experience after the shooting incident? Try listing them on a chart like this one.
BEFORE MACK DIED
She was more masculine and careless with her physical condition.
She saw his younger brother as an innocent and cute child.
She wanted to be with her father all the time taking care of animals and the farm.
She saw the boys her age as equals.
She liked her room, especially being with her brother at night while they sang and when later on she fantasized while awake.
AFTER MACK DIED
She cared more about her appearance.
She saw her brother as a hard-working and masculine boy.
She no longer daydreamed of working for his father and killing animals.
She saw boys her age as superior to her.
She decorated her room and tidied it up, since she couldn't help her father.
6. Another conflict in this story takes place in the girl's mind. What do you think the girl has decided when she says, "I was on Flora's side"? She decided to disobey her father and make a daring decision to feel capable of doing something important despite being just a girl.
7. What generalizations about boys and girls could you make based on this story? Women must be silent and weak, while men must be masculine and strong. Women should stay doing housework while men should do jobs that require effort such as hunting. Women, the more docile and feminine they are, the more accepted they are by society.
8. In your own experience, are the roles of girls and boys (or men and women) as distinct as they are in the rural Canada of this story? No, they are not very different. Many rights of women continue to be violated in different areas. Likewise, women continue to be seen as ''inferior'' to men and from society they receive a lot of criticism and, as if that were not enough, stereotypes.
9. Do you like the way Alice Munro ended the story, or do you wish something else had happened? Explain. I really liked the ending she gave to the story, because although as a reader and a woman I want the girl to reveal herself, the truth is that it would be very unrealistic given the narrator's conditions. So I think it's a good ending that makes us as women empathize a lot with the narrator.
By Isabella Botero C., Step 11
