Summary of Alice Munro's Short Story ‘Boys and Girls’

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‘Boys and Girls’ by Alice Munro tells an emotional story of a girl who realized about her future life as a girl in a subtle way. This story literally shows that childhood struggles with gender experiences particularly contribute to the development of maturity.

The story begins when the narrator tells a girl when she says that her father is a fox farmer. The girl struggles against society’s ideas of how a girl should be, only to see her trapped in the ways of the world. The author narrates a story of coming of age in which the narrator recounts his life as a child on a fox farm. During the summer holidays, the girl always decides to help her father on the farm outside their house rather than helping her mother in the kitchen, because the girl really doesn’t want to walk inside the kitchen in a gentle way. Her mother does everything to take the lead in cooking and her mother told her she helped with the cooking, but she didn’t tell. After that his father introduced him as his newly hired man. And the ‘boy’ named Laird his brother, with his father outside the house helping out on the farm with his father outside the house helping on the farm. Instead of a girl then, the situation was probably different, because he would eventually replace the girl with a 'new hired man' as the father said and then the father’s place as fox farmer.

The conflict of the story is the different expectations between a girl and a boy, but also the girl's s feelings towards, very contrary to popular belief. The girl’s belief that she could be of really great value to her father in her work for the most part was destroyed when she realized the perspective and expectations of societies on her, or so they thought. The girl particularly wanted her father to work on their fox farm, and generally she liked the attention her father gave her while working, or so they thought. The rising action in the story, the girl generally tries to almost find herself for all intents and purposes recognizable, and she doesn’t want to specifically be just a traditional woman, or so they thought most. The girl thinks of her mother as someone who isn’t really trustworthy, she thinks her mother is in essence planning. The girl didn’t really see that her mother’s work was as important as her father’s, or so they even more thought. Inside the work she thinks of as endlessly exhausting, while outside working with his father, for the most part is also about when the girl began to become conscious of her true physical form and of her study.

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The girl who struggles to actually find her usual self-identity, also reveals her identity to a horse, called flora. Flora will generally be killed as fox meat, but because the horse is powerful and really strong, she can run away from her father, which is generally significant. The girl was generally alone near the gate, but when the horse ran towards her, she did not close it in a big way.

In the falling actions, the girl wants to run freely and do what she wants, for the most part not wanting to be held back by the chains of society. Although the girl opened up, she knew that her father was important to catch up with the horse: they would catch up with her in the truck. The girl's feelings about the horse’s escape were in some ways the same as their feelings about themselves, or so they thought. He knew there wouldn’t be a common wild land for him, as there would be no freedom for most for Flora, which was quite significant. And girl also mentioned how she tried to decorate her part of the room to make it chic, when the story she was telling herself at night changed from a protector or a heroine and became the same scenario.

Lastly, the resolution of ‘Boys and Girls’ story. The narrator wants to work outside with her father, but tradition and expectations force her to grow up and be in every way a girl who works around the house with her mother, instead of being like that free and independent woman of her dreams. Throughout the story, the young girl was confronted with the expectations and limitations placed on her. She tries to fight them and finds some encouragement and inspiration in the equine flora, but eventually he realizes that the expectations are too high and ends up gently accepting them.

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Summary of Alice Munro’s Short Story ‘Boys and Girls’. (2023, September 08). Edubirdie. Retrieved May 6, 2024, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/summary-of-alice-munros-short-story-boys-and-girls/
“Summary of Alice Munro’s Short Story ‘Boys and Girls’.” Edubirdie, 08 Sept. 2023, edubirdie.com/examples/summary-of-alice-munros-short-story-boys-and-girls/
Summary of Alice Munro’s Short Story ‘Boys and Girls’. [online]. Available at: <https://edubirdie.com/examples/summary-of-alice-munros-short-story-boys-and-girls/> [Accessed 6 May 2024].
Summary of Alice Munro’s Short Story ‘Boys and Girls’ [Internet]. Edubirdie. 2023 Sept 08 [cited 2024 May 6]. Available from: https://edubirdie.com/examples/summary-of-alice-munros-short-story-boys-and-girls/
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