Analysis Of The Short Story Boys And Girls By Alice Munro
Often ones uncertain future can change or affect one's imagination. This can cause one to be confused or even become rebellious and reject what may be best for them due to mixed thoughts. In the short story “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro the main character gets caught in a dilemma throughout the story about how her uncertain future affects imagination, this eventually fades as her imagination begins to crumble and she accepts who society tells her to be.
In the beginning of the story the girl was very imaginative and adventurous as she says to herself like “I shot two rabid wolves who were menacing the school yard”. Her uncertain future didn't have a huge effect on her imagination in the beginning as she wasn't forced into the role of a girl as much. The author almost tricks the reader into thinking the main character was a boy until later shown otherwise. This is to make the reader “guilty” of enforcing gender roles on others. The main character was free to do and be whatever she wanted almost as she could help her father out around the farm and do “a man's job”. This created a false sense of who she wanted to be as later in the story she was forced into the role of “woman's duties” which changed her uncertain future and eventually scrunching her imagination.
Getting into the middle of the story she her imagination begins to contuse her imagination as she starts worrying about her uncertain future. Her smaller brother Liard never had to help around the farm with chores or such related tasks, yet her mother makes her feel out of place as she says “wait till Liard gets bigger, then you'll have a real help”. Another piece of evidence is when her grandmother says that she can’t slam doors because she's a girl and it explains how this makes her feel less than her brother. This degrades her as her brother does absolutely nothing and is still seen as greater than to her. The main character suffers from being put into a duty or class as it enhances her uncertain future, limits her imagination and disfiguring her and her values.
Near the end of the story she is rebellious towards the duties which are to be performed by a girl and is struggling with what everyone else is making her out to be. This shrinks her imagination to nearly nothing and her uncertain future begins to come more clear as her grandmother says “girls don't slam doors like that, girls sit with their legs crossed, and that’s none of a girls business”. Or in the very end of the story when she lets the horse out of the pen to run free, her little brother tells on her and her father is really mad so she begins crying but her father says “she's only a girl”. This hurts her more than if her father actually did get upset with her as it makes her feel like she is forced to be something she doesn't want to be. She was imagining her uncertain future to be her helping her father instead of being inside helping her mother as she would not be put into the class of a “woman” and she wishes to be seen as equal to her brother. She would compete the task her mother wanted her to do then sneak out of the house without her knowing so that she could be outside playing or working with her father. Another moment in the story when she feels degraded is when the salesman refused to see her as anything but “only a girl”. This affects her uncertain future and begins to make it more certain to her as she says “maybe it's true”, which refers to everyone putting her into the role of a girl. She eventually accepts that she will always be a girl and society won’t change the way she is seen by others.
Ultimately during the beginning of the story she seems to come off as a young girl with a huge imagination and no worry about the future. Mid to the end of the story she begins to suffer from what others make her out to be and her uncertain future which causes her imagination to slowly fade. Nearing the end of the story the main character seems very rebellious towards what others think but later on accepts who she is and what role she is meant to be in. The main thing the author was trying to get across from this story is that one shouldn't judge others by their gender. Everyone should not be limited to do certain things.
