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Symbols In Girls And Girls

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“Boys and Girls” is a short story written by Alice Munro in 1964. The story takes place on a fox farm in the midst of a typical family: one father, one mother, a son, and a daughter. The protagonist, an unnamed daughter, helps her father look after the foxes that he raises for pelts, and she does the manual labor just like any hired hand. She takes pride in her work and sees usual house work done by her mother as constricting and stuffy. One day the mare horse named Flora, who was meant to be put down that same day, runs away from her father and the unnamed daughter let the horse go out of the fence. As a result of her actions, she loses the respect of her father forever. Symbolism is used quite often in the story to demonstrate the roles of girls and boys. What her parents and other people …show more content…

The foxes, which her father skins and raises, demonstrate the common perceived role of women in relationships, while her father demonstrates the commonly perceived role of men in relationships. The house that they live in represents the sphere of the woman and inherently where the daughter and her mother, as females, belong. The barn is representative of the workplace and is where the man belongs. In Munro’s “Boys and Girls,” forced gender roles limit both boys’ and girls’ contributions to society and happiness.
Society, represented by the daughter’s mother, the father, and the “feed salesman,” tells the daughter (and girls and boys in general) that boys are only meant to work, provide for their family, and make all the decisions for the family; Meanwhile women are meant to be domestic and emotional yet intelligent. As a child, the daughter lays in bed and fantasizes of her future self “in a world that was recognizably [her own], yet one that presented opportunities for

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