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In the short story, 'Boys and Girls', Alice Munro utilizes temporal and physical setting to elucidate the main character's struggle with her gender role in society where there is a traditional division of labour. The main character is a young girl who goes through a journey of self- discovery from a child to a young woman. Munro uses the house and the farm to depict the stages of the main characters transformation.
Munro's use of foxes and horses, as well as the farming lifestyle, helps develop the temporal setting of the story. The story takes place in the late 40's, a time of change where machinery replaced horses, and wearing fox fur was a symbol of wealth and class. This is also a time where gender roles in society were distinctly divided between males and females. Men worked out of doors, whereas women were required to handle the domestic duties indoors.
The house is one of the main settings in the short story. The negative imagery surrounding the house is a prominent aspect of the main character's journey. For her, the house is a symbol of her gender prison in which she feels she is destined to remain. There is a reference in the story that she is "afraid of inside" (70). In the context of the story, Munro is referring to the imaginary man that is escaped from the county jail that is supposedly hiding in the protagonist's room where the bats and skeletons are. That sentence, however, has a double meaning. She is not only afraid of the convict, the bats and skeletons, but she is also afraid of living the rest of her life confined inside the house. She believes that this is the fate of most women and this frightens her.
For the main character, the house and the household duties represent the feminine world where her mother assumes her role as a woman. She feels that her mother " is not to be trusted" and is her " enemy" (7). The reason she feels this way is best described in the quote
She was always plotting. She was plotting now to get me to stay in the house more, although she knew I hated it (because she knew I hated it)
and keep me from working for my father. It seemed to me she would do this simply out of perversity, and to try her power. It did not occur to me that she could be lonely or jealous. (7)
The main character is suffering from delusions of persecution because she feels that her mother is trying to take her freedom away. She views her mother and the house as symbols of entrapment, inequality, and injustice, as her mother, a woman, is apparently forced to stay indoor.
For the main character, the bedroom in the house is a place of refuge where she can escape. As a young girl, she thinks as a boy would. She is a tomboy who every night just before going to sleep, will indulge herself in fantasies typical of a boy's. These fantasies involve the main character as the hero and take "place in a world that was recognizably mine, yet one that presented opportunities for courage, boldness, and self- sacrifice, as mine never did" (70).
The basement in the house is significant in the story because it's a symbol of her father's work where he slaughters the foxes. The use of negative and positive imagery supports the main character's boyish qualities. The negative imagery of the slaughter of the foxes, with their " naked, slippery bodies" and " there was the smell" (6), would have probably bothered most girls but not the main character. In fact, she " found it reassuringly seasonal, like the smell of oranges and pine needles "(6). Through positive imagery, Munro illustrates the main characters feelings about the slaughter in the basement of their house by saying the smell was a "reminder of the warm, safe, brightly lit downstairs world" (70).
The setting of the farm represents a man's world in which the main character, throughout the story, is striving to live in. Characteristic of a boy, she prefers work outside with her father to work inside with her mother, and feels "that work in the house [is] endless, dreary and peculiarly depressing; work done out of doors, and in my father's service [is] ritualistically important" (7). However, the protagonist has a sense of freedom until her younger brother Laird grows up, as her mother explains " Wait till Laird gets a little bigger, then you'll have a real help" (7). Her mother is insinuating that the main character, even though she is willing and capable of helping her father, is useless to him because she is a girl.
Munro's symbolic use of the fox pen on the farm helps illustrate the main character's journey. She draws a parallel between the foxes and the main character explaining that the foxes "were not named when they were born, but when they survived the first year's pelting and were added to the breeding stock" (71). This parallel is significant because the main character is also not named in this story and Munro is illustrating the fact that women do not have an identity until they marry a man and become part of the breeding population. It is also a symbolic way of showing that the main character is searching for her identity.
Munro's symbolic use of Flora on the farm represents the main character's perceived freedom. This feeling of freedom is felt when her father is about to kill Flora and she holds the gate open wide for Flora to run out. She explains, " I was on Flora's side, and that made me no use to anybody, not even to her. Just the same, I did not regret it… that was the only thing I could do" (76). Allowing Flora to run out of the field is a symbolic way of trying to free herself one last time from her impending gender role. She knows this is a futile attempt and that Flora will not get away, but she acts on an impulse driven by a desire for Flora's freedom, as Flora symbolically represents her own freedom. This rescue attempt on the farm is significant in the story because the main character is maturing and starting to realize that some things in life are meant to be and that everything, including herself, has a purpose. She also realizes that her foolish actions have created " more work for her father who work[s] hard enough already" (76).
The fox pen, the horse corral, and the house are all symbolic of confinement. The foxes resent the father for penning them up all the time, as he is the only one to go into the pens. Additionally, we see Flora and the other horses want to be free when the mare who was given to "fits of violent alarm" (7) was let loose in the fields, the main character has a "great feeling of opening-out, of release" (7). The main character also feels free when she lets the horse out. Also, the house is a symbol of restriction for the main character because it denies her freedom and keeps her away from her father.
The climax of the main character's journey peaks at the end of the story and involves the house as the setting. She seems interested in activities more characteristic of young girls such as "trying to make my part of the room fancy, spreading the bed with old lace curtains, and fixing myself a dressing table with some leftovers of cretonne for a skirt" (76). She seems to have matured and is "no longer afraid" (76) of the convict, bats, and skeletons. Her fantasies have evolved to more feminine, submissive context where "somebody would be rescuing me" and "the story concerned itself with what I looked like-how long my hair was, and what kind of dress I had on" (77). Her definition of a girl begins to change for her at the end of her journey. She starts to realize that the male world is sexist and involves a lot of killing, and she does not enjoy this. She prefers to stay indoors fixing up her room and looking in the mirror, to working outdoors and witnessing the carnage. She starts to realize that being a girl may be better in some ways than being a boy.
The setting in a story enables the reader to associate with the characters involved as well as create a fictional atmosphere. Munro's use of temporal setting, as well as the house and the farm, allow the reader to personalize with the main character's self- discovery. For the main character the identity search starts as she rebels to break away from her gender related societal role in a sexist world, where men appear to have the most important jobs and women get stuck with the leftovers. Through personal experiences, her journey of growth takes her into a world she thought she could never enjoy. She not only accepts her inevitable fate, she embraces it. This acceptance is partly because of her change of attitude regarding the male and female worlds, and partly because she realizes that the outside world is not as glamorous as she thought it was.
WORKS CITED
Munro, Alice. "Boys and Girls." Currents, eds. McNeilly, et. al.
Scarborough. Ont Prentice Hall, 000. 6
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