Boys and Girls by Alice Munro

“Boys and Girls” is a short story, by Alice Munro, which illustrates a tremendous growing period into womanhood, for a young girl living on a fox farm in Canada, post World War II. The young girl slowly comes to discover her ability to control her destiny and her influences on the world. The events that took place over the course of the story helped in many ways to shape her future. From these events one can map the Protagonist’s future. The events that were drawn within the story provided the Protagonist with a foundation to become an admirable woman.

Throughout the story there are several aspects of the Protagonist’s character that play a major role in the shaping of her future. During her childhood she often demonstrates a sense of fear when she is sent to her bedroom. “We were afraid of the inside, the room were we slept (pg. 549).” She is intimidated by her personal space because she does not have control over it. Later, she gains control by adding lace to her side of the room; symbolically adding personality to herself and slipping into womanhood. When she felt uncomfortable she exercised her imagination, to psychologically regain control over the confusion in her life. Her subconscious effort to control confusing times were carried on to her later years as she was constantly put in difficult situations, which helped her to adjust quickly to change during adulthood. The dreams she created changed when she began to place emphasis on her appearance-that which she could control, other than past dreams of heroism that seemed so distant from reality. The Protagonist filled her childhood with much pride and maintained a consistent focused upon the activities that filled her childhood. She relished working at the side of her father, taking immense pride in every aspect of her assigned duties. She proclaimed, “I worked willingly under his eyes, and with a feeling of pride (pg. 551)” Once after her father introduced her to a feed sales man as “my new hired man (pg. 551),” the Protagonist was flooded with pride as she “turned away and raked furiously, red in the face with pleasure (pg. 551).” In her later years her pride helped her to assemble strong self-confidence she used in her years of growing. Passion and depth were characteristics that impacted her future as a woman. Her passion and depth was revealed early on in the story as she sang. She claimed to “love the sound of my own voice (pg. 550).” After singing a specific part of a song she claimed that “a fit of shivering caused not by the cold sheets but by pleasurable emotion almost silenced me (pg. 550).” This revealed her depth as she could be touched by the simple words of a song. Her depth and passion fueled her future and her goals, setting her in the direction of success. The Protagonist’s ability to comfort herself, her pride, her passion and depth she could harness powered her into the direction of excellence in her adult years.

Throughout the story the Protagonist demonstrates a very unbalanced relationship with her family members. She feels intimidated by the world around her and turns her lack of knowledge into knowledge by controlling and influencing her younger brother Laird. She does so by telling him stories and exposing him to experiences she claims to be familiar with. In her later years her relationship with her brother becomes strong as they both realize they can benefit from each other’s experiences and differences. As a child the Protagonist viewed her father as God-like because he had control and organization over the lives and deaths of the foxes. In essence he became her hero as she admired his control over the animals. In her future relationship with her father she came to see that he was simply a business man and she made a great attempt to form a deeper relationship with her father. As she began to understand he was simply human and was no longer fearful of him. Her relationship with her mother during her childhood was confusing as she felt her mother was self-absorbed and almost dull at times. She once announced, “My mother…was not to be trusted. She was…easily fooled you could not depend on her (pg 552-553).” She constantly felt her mother was plotting against her, when in