Isolation In Boys And Girls By Alice Munro

The Institute of Psychiatry in New Zealand followed over a thousand kids for twenty years. They found that socially isolated children were at significant risk of poor adult health compared with non-isolated children. The need to belong is a fundamental human motivation that, when thwarted, compromises psychological health. Lonely children grow up to be exposed to more stress. In this short story, Alice Munro describes a child that is undervalued because she is a girl. The future of the protagonist of "Boys and Girls" will be affected by her childhood isolation. The fact that she feels discriminated because of her gender will determine her future happiness. The alienation she suffers is influenced by the frustration she feels, the inevitability

The girl in this short story has a hard life. She is forced to work to survive, her family treats her poorly and she feels undervalued. Her only way to escape from reality is through dreams or tiny decisions she can make without her parents’ consent or knowledge. Being able to decide and to do things for herself is what creates one’s personality. However, everything in life has consequences. For example, in the narration, the girl tries to fight her mother and her comments by being disobedient. “As soon as I was done, I ran out of the house, trying to get out of earshot before my mother thought of what she wanted me to do next.” (Munro 49) She is trying to get away from her mother, even though she will chase her after. Parents are the being who gave life to one and obedience is a natural consequence of that privilege. It is a duty and a right. The fact that she decides not to follow her mother’s will creates conflict, what at the same time prepares the atmosphere for future problems. She starts getting more and more distant with her mom and having negative thoughts about her. The alienation she is experiencing through physical punishment is physical makes her lonely. The psychological aspect of that isolation, since she does not understand the need of being corrected, makes her sad and confused. At the end, she does not know how to feel about the fact that she is a girl, “I didn’t protest, even in my heart. Maybe it was true.” (Munro 59) A similar thing happens when she tries to prove her independence by acting completely opposite of what her grandmother says. Comments such as “{g}irls don’t slam doors like that”, “{g}irls keep their knees together when they sit down” or “{t}hat’s none of girls’ business” have reactions like “I continued to slam the doors and sit as awkwardly as possible, thinking that by such measures I kept myself free.” (Munro 52) She wants to look rebellious