Theme: The theme presented in the short story “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro is that women are denied the freedom that men have over their identity and are forced to conform to roles decided for them by society. The main character in the story is a female who denies the roles of a female and attempts to be herself by unknowingly taking on the role of a male. However, as she comes of age, she is trapped between society’s barriers. Society’s rules transform her and she is forced to take on the traditional role of a female. This creates an identity crisis within the girl. In the short story she states, “A girl was not, as I had supposed, simply what I was; it was what I had to become. It was a definition, always touched with emphasis…” (Page …show more content…
For instance, the girl describes the winter night during her childhood as “snowdrifts curled around our house like sleeping whales” (Page 46). In this quote, we see the girl’s world through the eyes of a child. The comparison of snowdrift curing around her house to sleeping whales shows us how pleasant and peaceful her world was as a child. It also indicates a period in her life when she was innocent and she did not have to stress over the traditional roles of a female, instead she could let her imagination give light to her world. Repetition: In the short story, the narrator repeatedly uses the word “smell” ” to show the reassurance feeling the girl gets from what would be considered a “male job”. For instance, she says “There was the smell” and then she goes on to say “the smell of blood and animal fat… I found it reassuringly seasonal, like the smell of oranges and pine needles” (45). Not only is the author creating imagery through the use of the sense of smell in this quote, but she is also emphasizing the girl’s desires and passion for her father’s tasks at an early age. This use of repetition also foreshadows that the girl will carry this passion for her father’s work as she transitions into