Female gender roles in the short story “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject American Studies - Literature, University of Constance, language: English, abstract: Stereotyping and the discovery of limitations of the female gender can be seen as two important themes Alice Munro deals within her short story "Boys and Girls". In "Boys and Girls", which will be the base of this term paper, Munro criticises the social expectations and the gender roles of females, illustrated through the rebellion of the main character. The paper will show how the main protagonist deals with existing gender roles and rules in the society to that time and her attempts of liberation from social norms, although the 20th century is also characterized by two waves of feminism. First, the author will concentrate on female and male characters in the story as well as on general gender conceptions in the Canadian society to that time. Thus, the term paper will focus on the relationships between the characters as well as on how gender and symbols are connected.