Boys
and Girls” by Alice Munro
Text
Analysis
The story under analysis 'Boys
and Girls' is written by Alice Ann Munroe.
Alice Munro is a Canadian
English-language writer. She began writing stories as a teenager, but her debut
in book form took place only in 1968 with the story collection 'Dance of the
Happy Shades'. Munro has been appreciated for her finely tuned storytelling,
characterized by clarity and psychological realism. Her stories are often set
in small town environments, where people's struggle for a decent life often
results in difficult relationships and moral conflicts.
Her first collection of stories was published as Dance of the Happy Shades. In
2009, Munro won the Man Booker International Prize. That same year, she
published the short-story collection Too Much Happiness. In 2013, at age 82,
Munro was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The events in the short
story “Boys and Girls” take place on a fox breeding farm. There lives main
character with family. Father was a fox farmer. He made a
living by selling foxes' pelts: " He raised
silver foxes, in pens; and in the fall and early winter, when their fur was
prime, he killed them and skinned them and sold their pelts to the Hudson's Bay
Company or the Montreal Fur Traders."
Author skilfully presented the setting of the events in a detailed
way and very realistic. The setting introduces us to the life of this
family.
There are several themes:
relationships between children and parents, family problems, problems of
growing up, but to my mind the main is the inequality of rights between man and
women. It is obviously seen in difference how family treat with the main
character and how with her brother. The idea is to show the
development of a character and the role of male and female.
From the point of view of
presentation the text is the 1st person narrative.
The types of speech
employed by the author of the analyzed story are narration with the elements of
description and direct speech.
From the point of view of
composition the text consists of exposition, development of the events, climax
and denouement.
In exposition we are
introduced to the setting and main characters. We found out about family, where
their lived and in what way they made a living.
Then comes plot, here starts
the development of the events. Through the little girl vision author describe
daily routine of the family, relations between its members. The father
raises silver foxes and sells their pelts. The mother does housekeeping,
children help their parents.
The climax comes when
girl opened the gates and let out the horse Flora. She knew it would make
some troubles to her father, but did it. "Instead of shutting the
gate, I opened it as wide as I could. I did not make any decision to do this;
it was just what I did."
The anticlimax is in the
sentence "She could of shut the gate and she didn't. She just open’ it up
and Flora ran out."; "Never mind. She's only a girl".
Here we see the constitution of things and the place of the women in farmer’s
family and in our society.
There are 4 characters: the
father, the mother, younger brother Laird and the girl.
The main character is the girl, narrator of the story. She is 11
years old. She is good, hard-working girl who has adventurous temper and boyish
spirit. She dreamed of adventures and feat(“I
rescued people from a bombed building (it discouraged me that the real war had
gone on so far away from Jubilee). I shot two rabid wolves who were menacing
the schoolyard (the teachers cowered terrified at my back). Rode a fine
horse spiritedly down the main street of Jubilee, acknowledging the
townspeople’s gratitude for some yet-to-be-worked-out piece of heroism (nobody
ever rode a horse there, except King Billy in the Orangemen’s Day
parade). There was always riding and shooting in these stories...” ).
She likes men’s work. She
helps her father on the farm with enthusiasm when at the same time she tries to
avoid helping her mother.(“ It
seemed to me that work in the house was endless, dreary, and peculiarly
depressing; work done out of doors, and in my father's service, was
ritualistically important.”)
The author describes the father by means of indirect
personage’s characterization with the help of speech characterization. He
is slogger, he works hard to feed his family.
(“...he raised silver foxes, in pens; and in the fall and early winter, when
their fur was prime, he killed them and skinned them and sold their pelts to
the Hudson’s Bay Company or the Montreal Fur Traders.”).
The mother is described by means of direct
characterization. She is housewife; she also works hard because the work in
the house was endless and and she must cope with all tasks (“She did not often come out of the house
unless it was to do something – hang out the wash or dig potatoes in the
garden. She looked out of place, with her bare lumpy legs, not touched by the
sun, her apron still on and damp across the stomach from the supper dishes. Her
hair was tied up in a kerchief, wisps of it falling out. She would tie her hair
up like this in the morning, saying she did not have time to do it properly,
and it would stay tied up all day. It was true, too; she really did not have
time.” “My mother was too tired and preoccupied to talk to me, she had no
heart to tell about the Normal School Graduation Dance.” )
Laird is the brother of the main character. He is characterized by
means of indirect personage’s characterization. He is little boy, week and
clumsy person, but still helps his father at the farm ( “Laird came too, with
his little cream and green gardening can, filled too full and knocking against
his legs and slopping water on his canvas shoes.”, “Who could imagine Laird
doing my work – Laird remembering the padlock and cleaning out the watering
dishes with a leaf on the end of a stick, or even wheeling the tank without it
tumbling over? “).
Alice Munro is indeed the great
writer and the master of the contemporary short
story. From the first line of “boys and girls”, reader is absorbed in
this story. Realistic events and details
which the author skilfully describes in the story make us read it with the
great interest. The author reaches this effect by using different stylistic
devises.
To emphasize the disparity
of the women and show the idea that “the kitchen is the women place” author uses
irony (“Could of fooled me.” said
the salesman. “I thought it was only a girl.”)
The main
character did not like work in the house. And to show girl’s bad attitude to
this, Author uses such hyperbole “It seemed to me that work in the house was endless”
To portray the beauty of
nature and add more expressiveness to the text author uses several epithets :
cold blue sky, black pine forests, treacherous
northern rivers, plumed adventures, magnificent savages
the unaccustomed sunlight and fresh air.
Also author uses epithet to give Henry evaluative characteristic: atisfied, bubbly breaths: derisive eyes; winter-paled
face.
There are some metaphors,
they are used to add to the description more
expressiveness and vividness :
“a
weight in my stomach”, “the
sadness of unexercised guilt”, “yet-to-be-worked-out piece of heroism”.
To compare snowdrifts to
whales that swim in the ocean without any wish Munro uses simile “when snowdrifts curled
around our house like sleeping whales”
In order to show Henry’s
emotions and temper there is oxymoron
“Henry didn't answer me.
Instead he started to sing in a high, trembly ,mocking-sorrowful voice.”
As for Syntactical devises
there are :
repetition (He would cough and cough until
his narrow face turned scarlet – to show that Henry was ill; She
was always plotting. She was plotting now to get me to stay in the
house more…- to lay an emphatic stress on the girl’s usual habit, condition)
detachment (It might be a boy from our class at
school, or even Mr. Campbell, our teacher, who tickled girls under
the arms; We were afraid of inside, the room where we slept;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) – to emphasize the sentence, to
make it more exact)
ellipsis (“Listen,” I said in an unusually
bright and friendly voice, “you aren't going to tell, are you?
“No,” he said absently.
“Promise.” – it reproduces colloquial speech)
antithesis (We were afraid at
night in the winter. We were not afraid of outside
though… - to emphasize communicative and expressive value of the narration, to
give a piece of fear to the story).
To sum it up, I’d like to say that Alice Munroe is worthy
of Nobel Prize. I really like “Boys and Girls”, because the problem of gender
equality is relevant even in our days.
