Alice Munro's short story, "Boys and Girls,” has a very interesting detail written into it. The narrator's brother is named Laird, which was carefully chosen by the author. Laird is a synonym for lord, which plays an important role in a story where a young girl has society's unwritten rules forced upon her. At the time of the story, society

The time when this story took place was a time when men and women were not considered equivalent. Mothers had traditional roles, which means that they’re jobs were strictly around the house, while men also had their roles, outside of the house. The male was the dominant figure in the house, while the woman had to be subservient:

The narrator had problems coming to terms with the role that she was expected to lead in life. While the girl loved the work outside she hated to do the ‘woman’s work’ inside. She disliked her mother for making her do it, and believed that her mother only made her do it because she didn’t like it. She didn’t like anything about this work. "I hated the hot dark kitchen in the summer" (p. 530). She felt that working in the kitchen was endless, depressing and unimportant compared to the work she did for her father. She would do a chore for her mother and then run off before she could tell her to do anything else. She had a very low opinion about her mother. She felt that the only thing her mother talked about were things that were unimportant to her. She thought that her mother was undependable, easily fooled, conniving and ignorant about the way things really were. She wanted to work outside with her father doing the work that she deemed important. The narrator was not considered of any consequential help to her father, simply because she was female.

Some topics in this essay:
Boys Girls”, Boys Girls, Alice Munro, boys girls, Alice Munro's, short story, narrator coming, narrator coming terms, coming terms role, father tells, father mother, expected lead, society narrator, story girl, coming terms, terms role,