Discussion Groups

During group discussions, you will have the opportunity to compare interpretations, share visualizations, correct misunderstandings and make connections and predictions. Please make use of this valuable resource in your journal entries. Take the time to reflect on and revise (if necessary) your initial responses.

Sample #2

"Boys and Girls" is interesting in that it explores how strongly society influences the way that we think and act; and it's surprising to see how even the girl's own mother and father, entrenched in their traditional way of thinking, disregard her unique qualities and expect their daughter to develop into their vision of a young woman.

It helps that the story is told very bluntly from the perspective of the girl herself, because soon enough it becomes evident that she is subconsciously accepting the stereotype of becoming a delicate young woman, taking to adorning her bed with frilly sheets and dreaming about being rescued by men, as opposed to her old habits of being afraid of what lurked in the corner of her room and being the one to do the rescuing in her dreams. The girl telling the story ends up becoming more feminine whether she likes it or not simply because she is expected to, with the last lines of the story showing her resignation as she accepts that she is "only a girl". She basically accepts the inevitable, assuming that if so many people expect her to become something, then they must be correct.

I can relate somewhat to the story in that my own father is a landscaper, and so as I grew up I would always go to work with him and try to help him out. I would do menial tasks and always try and do my best to impress him in front of the workers. As I got older I became less and less interested in the kind of work my dad did, and hated having to go to work, even when I would get paid. The girl in the story however, would love nothing more than to keep working with her father, but is being pulled towards her mother, almost against her will. It is clear that the narrator expects that her younger brother Laird is too erratic and absent minded to assume her duties, wondering how such an immature little boy could ever be expected to do the job she is so good at. In her world, she is superior to her brother, yet to the outside world she is seen as just a girl, going through a confusing stage of adolescence who will be replaced in her duties by Laird once he gets a bit older. She sees her mother’s life as dismal and drab, yet she will probably grow up to do the same thing, accepting it as a fact of life because that is what she truly thinks women must do. Having watched her mother conform to that kind of stereotype ingrains that kind of mentality in her just as much as in the men around her.

Journal entries will be marked on Monday, November 9th. Due to marks cut-off for report cards it is even more important that your work is handed in on time.