Wild Horses essays

Wild Horses essays Alice Munro has a history of writing stories that demonstrate the changing and shifting of relationships in a world perceived as chaotic and unforgiving. "Boys and Girls" is no different. This story isn't merely about a girl watching a horse die. This is about a girl fast approaching her adolescence, and her inability to cope at first. We never learn her name, but the girl in this story has her major conflict in her role in the family and how she is supposed to act. The first clue that this is a problem occurs in paragraph 22, where we learn that the grandmother has certain expectations for "girls". These include not slamming doors and keeping knees together while sitting. The girl tries to preserve her "freedom" by slamming doors and sitting awkwardly as often as possible. This reasoning of girls acting in a certain fashion is emphasized in other places in the story as well. In paragraph 10, she contrasts her parents and how they relate to her while they work together. This demonstrates the vast differences in how the adults deal with the More evidence of this is in paragraph 12, where the girl voices her surprise at seeing her mother out at the barn. This proves that there are two distinctive roles in the home, and that they are very different. The message here is that the mother is seldom seen outside the kitchen. We read about conversations between the mother and daughter, and More examples of stereotypes in their family is in paragraph 16, where the mother is discussing the way the girl is always helping the father instead of her. She explains that every time she turns around, the girl has run off. She made a comment that sometimes it doesn't even seem like there is a little girl in the family at all. This shows how uncomfortable the mother is with havin ...