Coming Of Age In Boys And Girls By Alice Munro

The short story, “Boys and Girls,” written by Alice Munro, is a coming-of-age story about an eleven-year-old girl. The girl lives on a farm with her younger brother, mother, and father, where they raise foxes and sell their pelts. As the narrator, the girl faces struggles mentally with her family and society’s expectations of her as a girl coming of age. The girl is not fond of conforming to the expectations of a lady due to her interest and love for the duties of a male. The way the story is told demonstrates a perfect example of how a young girl decided to play the role of a female. Certain situations throughout the story, “Boys and Girls,” demonstrate the girl coming of age through her relationship with the women in her life, the men, and

While the girl grew up, the narrator worked alongside her father all day and enjoyed being his helping hand. One day her father has a feed salesman show up to talk to him and he said that his fighter was his newly hired man. The girl was shocked and blushed at the statement he made about he father. The salesman said, “Could have fooled me, I thought it was only a girl” (169). The girl was thought of as a girl who was intended to be working in the house and not outside doing the dirty work. The narrator instantly felt a sense of hopelessness. After all, she never dreamed of doing the role of a female because she preferred the work she was doing with her father. Like her mother, the narrator’s father believed she would eventually leave him and perform tasks that fit under a

One day, the narrator is faced with the news that the two horses, Mack and Flora, were going to be shot. She had forgotten this since the horses have been in the barn for so long. Once, Mack was shot, the next day was time for Flora to be shot. Unfortunately, Flora escapes from the narrator's father and Henry, the helping hand, so the girl is given a chance to let her escape and not be killed or shut the gate for her father. The narrator randomly chooses to let the horse out into freedom. After it had happened she began to think that now her father would believe she is essentially on the horse’s side instead of her father’s. She comes to the point where she realizes that her place was not helping her father, but to grow up and become a lady. Furthermore, this leads to her having a conversation with her father about the incident. Her father is informed by her brother that it was all her fault the horse got away. Since the narrator let the horse out, she was conforming to what a girl would do in this type of situation. Her father was extremely disappointed in her and made the comment, She’s only a girl” (176). The narrator did not deny the statement but instead realized that it had truth to it deep