A rant on electronic surviellance

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Electronic surveillance has progressed to the point of infringing on the rights of everyone on the planet. The thought of privacy is a vanishing notion. There are government agencies and private individuals that have the technology to decipher what is being typed right now on this paper. There are cases in the court system at this moment that addresses the issue of vanishing privacy. Some of the areas of concern are the way the worlds governments and individuals have been spying on the worlds population, the need for some kind of regulation on this technology, and the moral dilemma as to who is going to be the guardian of our privacy.

Has electronic surveillance gone too far? Some people would answer a resounding yes. Others, on the other hand, would say no. There should be a point that we can assign to the right amount of watchfulness. There is not a point that we can define at this moment in time. The interception of communications has been one of most powerful tools in fighting crime. In fact this type of crime detection goes back as far as the seventeenth century in the colonial United States. In 1640, Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony boarded a supply ship headed for England. Once he was on the ship he opened a letter from one of the inhabitants of the new colony. He returned to Plymouth with the letters in hand and made a public accusation of the person that wrote the letters. Bradford stated that he was justified in searching out and opening the letters. He was quoted as saying that it was "to prevent the mischief and ruin that this conspiracy and plot of theirs would bring on this poor colony." 1 The interception of information has risen to what is almost an art form, and has many uses in today's technological societies. One way in which the privacy of the world's citizenry has been affected comes from the United States government's guardian of secrecy, The National Security Agency, or NSA as it is normally referred to.

The NSA has a listening system in place called Echelon. Echelon can almost listen to every telecommunication transmission on the planet. Think about that for a second, a system that can hear close to every transmission made 47, 65 days a year. That is a very, very, ominous threat to the private lives of everyone. Echelon is not supposed to be used against any U.S. citizen no matter if they are on the continent or any place else on earth. To help the NSA in their efforts to analyze virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message anywhere in the world the NSA has some mighty allies. The NSA controls ECHELON but it is run in conjunction with the General Communications Head Quarters (GCHQ) of England, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) of Canada, the Australian Defense Security Directorate (DSD), and the General Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) of New Zealand. These organizations are bound together under a secret 148 agreement, UKUSA, whose terms and text remain under wraps even today. The NSA will not explain exactly what Echelon is fully, or what it is capable of even to the senate sub-committees that have been looking into it.

Speaking about the government looking into one of it's agencies practices brings us to the FBI and their newest "Diagnostic Tool". Or at least that is what Donald M. Kerr, the Assistant Director of the Laboratory Division of the FBI, said in a report to the House of Representatives about the use of CARNIVORE. The report was titled "Internet and Data Interception Capabilities Developed by FBI", and was dated, July 4, 000".

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The United States Government and its partners have set up a network of surveillance that pale any network preceding it.

There is a landmark case in the U.S. courts right now. It involves an alleged mobster by the name of Nick Scarfo. The FBI was watching Mr. Scarfo and they were using a new technology to record the keystrokes on Mr. Scarfo's computer. The method the FBI used was so effective that it led to an indictment from the Grand Jury. The case is a cause for alarm on both sides of the surveillance issue. The new technology is supposedly a combination of a monitoring software and a power output booster. This of course is mostly conjecture because the FBI has not released any of the data about what they are using sighting that it could affect ongoing operations. The attorneys for Mr.Scarfo are having a field day with the fact that the FBI will not release the source of its data. The keystroke monitoring software would have had to been installed on Mr.Scarfo's computer to be effective, the power booster would not. The power booster works as a controlled, continuous, power spike that makes it possible to tell what character was being typed on the suspects computer at all times. Once the character is typed, the monitoring agents then record the ASCII character that corresponds to the keystroke. Once the data is gathered and then transferred back into English, the total contents of the computer being monitored would be theirs, the FBI's, for the taking. The software version of the surveillance operation is supposed to send an email to the FBI of all transactions on the given computer. The use of this software is what the attorneys for Mr. Scarfo are arguing is un-constitutional. The attorneys are saying that the FBI stepped out of their bounds by using this new technology to violate Mr.Scarfo's rights. Never mind the close to 5 people that the alleged mobster has killed rights. This is a hot issue to say the least. The fact that the Justice Department has over 0 such cases that they are willing to talk about says that. There must be at least twice that many that they are not willing to talk about. The president and CEO of the Who, What, When, Corporation has stated that this is not ground breaking technology and that his company has been marketing a version of this very same software for years. They, the company, have been selling the same software to intelligence gathering organizations as their main source of income for approximately 5 years.

Imagine if you will, that you want to sell someone a time-share property in the North Cape area of the former Soviet Union or even in the Northern part of Arkansas. You would like to know if the person you are calling has the means to pay for the ends that you propose to them. A couple of keystrokes and you have all the information that you require. Used to be that getting information on an individual in the United States was a difficult thing to do. This is not the case anymore; as a matter of fact it is getting increasingly easier to do. With banks doing over 50% of their business over the Internet it is getting harder and harder to remain anonymous as a citizen of the world. Even if the bank says that their servers are 100% secure, there is no such animal. The idea of a 100% secure server is almost unheard of in the IT community. There are far too many variables to go into in an article with this narrow a scope to explain what it would take to make a 100% safe serve on the Internet. The best way to stay safe on the Internet, sadly, is to not use it. If a person buys something over the net there are devices known as cookies sent to that persons computer. These are small programs that release information about the individual buying practices of that individual. These little programs, I say little because they are very small and live on the host persons hard drive, connect to any sight that asks for advice as to what to send to the individual. Kind of cool, but in a way it is also very scary to think that a network of computers know what we are thinking about and wanting to buy once online. That is in effect what is happening, a group of computers decide what we want to see and sends those items to use us for financial gain.

Echelon is perhaps the most powerful intelligence gathering organization in the world. Several credible reports suggest that this global electronic communications surveillance system presents an extreme threat to the privacy of people all over the world. According to these reports, ECHELON attempts to capture staggering volumes of satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic traffic, including communications to and from North America. This vast quantity of voice and data communications are then processed through sophisticated filtering technologies.

This massive surveillance system apparently operates with little oversight. Moreover, the agencies that purportedly run ECHELON have provided few details as to the legal guidelines for the project. Because of this, there is no way of knowing if ECHELON is being used illegally to spy on private citizens.

This site is designed to encourage public discussion of this potential threat to civil liberties, and to urge the governments of the world to protect our rights.

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Pol Pot and Cambodia

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Pol Pot, his Khmer Rouge, and his regime have had a lasting impact on Cambodia. The after-effects of the ¡¥Killing Fields¡¦ of 175-178, in which more than a million people were killed, will most likely last well into the 1st Century, and Cambodia may well never fully recover from the wounds they sustained during the time of Pol Pot¡¦s rule.

Pol Pot was born in May 1, 15 xto a wealthy peasant family in the Kompong Thom Province of Cambodia. He had a privileged upbringing; he was educated in a royal school and then in a Catholic mission school, and his peers saw him as quiet, polite, and charming- though academically average. In 148, he received a scholarship to study electrical engineering in Paris, where he became fascinated with the works of Marx. He became actively involved in the Cambodian section of the French Communist Party, setting up his own Communist cell with his fellow Cambodian students. He then failed his exams, lost his Government scholarship and returned to Cambodia.

While Pol Pot worked on establishing a Communist Party in Cambodia, Prince Norodom Sihanouk gained Cambodia independence from France. Pol Pot took up a job as a teacher in a private school, then became Secretary (leader) of the Communist Party in 16. He was forced to flee into the jungle after Sihanouk¡¦s Government violently opposes his leftist opposition. Sihanouk had taken a neutral approach to foreign affairs, and allowed North Vietnamese to set up base in Eastern Cambodia, in the hope that they would respect Cambodia¡¦s borders. From 16 to 17, America bombed these sanctuaries, killing thousands of Cambodians in the process.

Pol Pot traveled to China in 166 and witnessed the Cultural Revolution. He, like his comrades, was impressed by China¡¦s style of Communism. In 170, General Lon Nol ousted Sihanouk, in a U.S-backed right-wing coup. Sihanouk, embittered, forms an alliance with Pol Pot and his ¡¥Khmer Rouge¡¦ (a name given to the Communists by Sihanouk when in power), and the ¡¥United Front¡¦ takes up arms to overthrow Lon Nol. They also received military support from the North Vietnamese. When he gained power, however, Pol Pot eradicated his supporters. He first, gradually, wiped out any Vietnamese influence in the Khmer Rouge, before turning on supporters of Sihanouk and eliminating them. Pol Pot became Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) in 175, where his genocide began. He declared 175 ¡¥Year Zero¡¦ and began to murder ¡¥undesirables,¡¦ such as Government Officials, those able to read, those caught having sex, or those a member of the Khmer Rouge did not like. He evacuated Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia), of its three million people, transporting everyone- the sick, the elderly, the children- to the villages, where they were worked extremely hard. Pol Pot¡¦s vision was of a classless, agrarian society, where there were no influences from the West, such as science or money. He believed life should be made up of work and then death. He ruled, brutally, until 178, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia as ¡¥liberators.¡¦ Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge fled once more into the Cambodian jungle.

Pol Pot claimed for years to lead a Kampuchean Government in exile. The United Nations recognized this, as they refuse to recognize the Vietnamese-backed Hun Sen Government as the legitimate ruler of Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge itself tried pol Pot, because of his execution of many Khmer Rouge members whom he suspected of treason. He was sentenced to life under house arrest. However, this show trial has been compared to the SS trying Hitler during World War II. Pol Pot was never really tried for his crimes.

Pol Pot has impacted Cambodia in many different ways, which can be loosely categorised into mental and physical. The physical effects of Pol Pot¡¦s regime are much more tangible than mental effects. He has impacted on the physical wellbeing of the Cambodian people, as well as Cambodia itself. The most obvious impact he has had is the genocide of the Cambodian people. During his savage rule, more than a million people died, mostly of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition.

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Oligopoly

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An oligopoly describes a market situation in which there are limited or few sellers. Each seller knows that the other seller or sellers will react to its changes in prices and also quantities. This can cause a type of chain reaction in a market situation. In the world market there are oligopolies in steel production, automobiles, semi-conductor manufacturing, cigarettes, cereals, and also in telecommunications.

Often times oligopolistic industries supply a similar or identical product. These companies tend to maximize their profits by forming a cartel and acting like a monopoly. A cartel is an association of producers in a certain industry that agree to set common prices and output quotas to prevent competition. The larger the cartel, the more likely it will be that each member will increase output and cause the price of a good to be lower.

The majority of time an oligopoly is used describe a world market; however, the term oligopoly also describes conditions in smaller markets where a few gas stations, grocery stores or alternative restaurants or establishments dominate in their fields. A distinguishing characteristic of an oligopoly is the interdependence of firms. This means that any action on the part of one firm with respect to output, price, or quality will cause a reaction on the side of other firms.

Many times an oligopoly leads to price leadership between many firms. A price leadership is the practice in many oligopolistic industries in which the largest firm publishes its price list ahead of its competitors. Then these competitors feel the need to match those announced prices so they lower their prices. This is also termed a parallel pricing.

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Oligopolies tend to be broken down into one of two distinguished groups. These groups are either a homogeneous or differentiated oligopoly. Homogeneous oligopolies have a standardized product and which include industrial, with petroleum serving as the standardized example, and also services such as banking. Differentiated oligopolies, where the products have some differences, are found in consumer goods industries, such as cars, biscuits, beer and electrical appliances.

There is however another oligopoly in which the manner of the corporation or industry is quite familiar to that of a monopoly. This oligopoly is termed collusive. A collusive oligopoly has the ability to behave in the manner of a monopoly and no longer faces a kink in the demand curve. With this type of oligopoly there comes many obstacles. A few examples of obstacles that need to be overcome are that of the Trade Practices Act, which states that any unfair or deceptive trade by a business is illegal, and also difficulty in getting price agreement because of different costs or a large number of firms in the oligopoly.

A current example of an oligopoly would be that of the Viacom/CBS merger. Viacom had proposed a $37 billion deal with CBS that would unite both of these media industries. The new Viacom would be one of only nine massive, diversified corporations-all of which took their present shape in the last fifteen years. These media giants include Time Warner, Disney, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., Viacom, Sony, Seagram, AT&T/Liberty Media, Bertelsmann, and GE. This oligopoly would never have passed legal convention if the regulators at the Federal Communications Commission and in the antitrust division of the Justice Department were doing their jobs, or if the Telecommunications Act of 1996 were not railroaded through Congress. These regulators have let these mergers slide, under intense pressure from the telecommunications and entertainment industry.

Microsoft, the biggest Software Company in the world, has been through a lot of debate of whether they have a monopoly and have the ability to establish an oligopoly industry. Microsoft Corporation has the ability to control software prices in the market. They have in a way an oligopoly in this industry. If Microsoft decides to lower their prices on goods then the other sellers in their industry will also decide to lower their price on goods. Microsoft knows that they have control over the other companies and uses that to their advantage.

Over the past few months there has been talk about dismantling Microsoft Corporation. The U.S. Justice Department has mentioned a breakup of Microsoft, which would help destroy their monopoly in the computer industry. However, some people still have concern about the disruption of Microsoft and its effect on the computer industry, which has largely thrived and operated on Microsoft's standard.

Today the phone industry, once the biggest monopoly in U.S. history, is evolving into an oligopoly consisting of three or four huge carriers. Their intent is to offer an impressive array of long-distance, local, Internet, and wireless services to consumers and businesses. An example would be that of MCI WorldCom Inc. which has recently reached an agreement to acquire Sprint Corp for an estimated $115 billion in stock. This deal between MCI WorldCom and Sprint represents the largest takeover in history, and would create the world's biggest telecommunications company. This deal brings together the second and third largest long distance carriers in the U.S. with an estimated annual revenue of about $50 billion. The companies would have 30% of the consumer long-distance market, with more than 30 million long-distance customers and a global reach from the U.S. to Europe and Asia. The new company, which is going to be called WorldCom, would have a stock market value of over $200 billion.

BellSouth Corp. also wanted to acquire Sprint Corp. but was in the end outgunned by that of MCI WorldCom. This proves to consumers and the rest of the telecommunications industry that BellSouth Corp. is willing to make huge investments to survive in the market against oligopolies. The goal of the telecommunications oligopoly is to provide a one stop shopping for telecommunications services including phone, Internet, and wireless. Since the 1996 Telecommunications Act unleashed a frenzy of mergers, BellSouth has gone from being the largest of seven regional Bells to the second smallest of four. The smallest one, US West, is about to be acquired by Qwest Communications. Only BellSouth boasts the same corporate structure as three years ago.

The graph of an oligopoly consists of a kinked demand curve. This kinked demand curve is constructive in the assumption that oligopolists match price decreases but not price increases. A company starts off with a given price, Po, and we assume that the quantity demanded at the price for this individual oligopolist is Qo. The starting price of Po is usually consistent and represents a stable market price. If the oligopolist assumes that its rival will not react to its price change than it faces demand curve D1 and D2 with a marginal revenue curve of MR1. However, if the oligopolist assumes that the rival will react then the oligopoly faces the demand curve at D1D2 with a marginal revenue curve at MR2. In a lower price situation, oligopolies tend to assume that if it lowers prices than other companies will follow suit in order not to lose their shares of the market. The initial oligopoly that lowered its prices does not drastically increase its quantity demanded so it faces a demand curve at D1D2. If the oligopoly raises its price over the original price, Po, than the rivals will most likely not follow the chain. A higher price than Po will cause quantity demanded to decrease rapidly. If the demand curve is to the left and above E then it will generally will be elastic, or efficient. Prices above Po are consistent with the relevant demand curve of D1D1, and prices below Po are consistent with the relevant demand curve of D2D2. The kink in the demand curve occurs at the point labeled E. There is also a gap in the marginal revenue curve marked by MR1 and MR2.

There are many oligopolies in the world market that dominate their respective fields. They have the ability to control prices and quantities of their goods, forcing other companies in that specific industry to adjust to the oligopoly's changes. The oligopoly has the power to do that because there are few sellers in the industry and each seller reacts to that of the other ones. This often leads to price leadership. This price leadership has a dramatic impact on consumers. Companies compete with the prices of goods and they keep lowering their prices. At the time these price decreases are beneficial for consumers; however, an oligopoly can afford to lower their prices and the smaller firms can not. As a result these smaller firms might be annihilated and enable the oligopoly to dominate the industry. If the oligopoly comes to dominate their industry they then have the ability to set prices higher, a terrible aspect for consumers. This paper is the property of NetEssays.Net Copyright © 1999-2002

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Media studies brief?

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For my practical project I will aim to produce a short film following the codes and conventions of the crime genre, the film will be around 5-10 minutes long. The audience I will aim my film at will be males in the 15-0 year old age bracket, I have chosen this age range because I feel as the producer of the film I am aware what elements of a film, the audience will enjoy and how to target elements of the film towards this audience.

I would like to give the audience of the film, the feeling that they are pleased with how the film has ended and the 'correct' character(s) have completed their goal, I would like to go against convention and aim to have the audience empathise with criminals and hope the criminals succeed. My narrative will be linear, at the beginning of the film, however I would like to changer my narrative style so events that are happening at different times in the same place are cut together. This narrative is aimed to make the target audience feel they could be in the same place as the characters, so they will feel empathy for the characters in that situation and feel more involved with the film.

I will use a variety of different angle shots, and key shots on artefacts to aid the story line and represent each character in a different way, I will use low angle shots on characters that will be represented as powerful and intimidating, high angle shots will be used when one character is fearful of another, this will be used so the representation of the characters is more clear, as well as using camera angles to represent each different character I will use the situation they are introduced in, and the costume they are wearing will add to the representation of the character, how the character responds to each situation they are placed in will also build up representation, in this film I will aim to represent each character differently so the audience feels they can relate to at least one of these characters and become more involved with the film and it's characters. I will not produce a script for the artefact, so if dialogue is needed it can be improvised and the characters feel less constructed, and more natural to the audience, this element of the film means the audience will find it easier to relate to the more 'human' characters.

I will use a series of still images for one scene in my film, these images will be blurred and combined with the noises of the event will convey what is happening, however it also means the identity of the characters in the scene is still a mystery, and characters can be introduced in 'natural' circumstances to give the impression of their personality more strongly.

The artefact will be made under the institution of film, and made onto DVD video if it was to be marketed, and I aim to make the film in the crime film genre.

In order to appeal to my audience, 15-0 year old males, I will use elements that this audience will enjoy, in order to find out these elements I have looked at films in the crime genre that are aimed at this target audience, these films include ocean's eleven, the score and the usual suspects. These films have used the criminals in the overall story as the main characters and placed then on the role of 'hero' according to prop's narrative theory. As well as relating to characters in these films they use an element of humour, often dark humour, to add a different element to the film and make it more enjoyable for the target audience. In my film I will attempt to use this element to add to the enjoyment of the film for my audience. As well as these factors, all the films I looked at for early research contained a twist in the storyline, changing the expected outcome for the audience and leaves them when they have finished watching the film thinking that the story was clever and the narrative worked well to convey the twist in the plot. In my film I aim to place a twist in my plotline and leave the audience with this feeling.

Before producing the film, I will spend time in pre-production. Research will be carried out into possible music, locations, actors and a storyboard will be drawn up to assist myself in the direction.

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Alice Munro's 'Boys and Girls'

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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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