English 12 "Boys and Girls" lecture notes

Stereotypical adjectives to describe boys, stereotypical adjectives to describe girls

blue pink

gender stereotypes

Small group talk

“BoysandGirlsDiscQues” LCD

Read story twice

– once for the basics, armchair reading

- setting

- characters, major , minor

- plot

- conflicts – resolved, unresolved

-second reading, desk with a pencil

- focus on a deeper level

- symbols

- turns of phrases

- quotable words, phrases

- repeated ideas, words, phrases

- Lead to an understanding of theme

Theme – deeper message, deeper meaning, main idea

What is the story trying to tell us?

What is the story teaching us about ourselves/ society/humanity?

Storytelling teaches us about ourselves. Storytelling is teaching.

·       Notes: http://www.r-go.ca/boys_girls_munro.htm

NOTES

Understanding the story through close reading and symbols

- pay attention

- trust the author

- find something of value

First thing – Start with the Title

“Boys and Girls” words have meanings

-contrast between farm and calendar, wild and free, not free, domesticated, tame, civilized

-safe inside/ outside “We had rules to keep us safe...” (1)

“our narrow life rafts” (2)

“Jingle Bells”, childish “Danny Boy”, more mature

“my own voice... frail and supplicating”

“opportunities for courage, boldness...” READ EXAMPLES

“I had only been on a horse... I was really learning to shoot..”

“the foxes inhabited a world my father made for them... high guard fence”

“my father was tirelessly inventive” (2)

father a symbol for patriarchy

“That was my job in summer... Laird came too...  I had the real bucket” (2)

“The foxes all had names...” “were added to the breeding stock”

MEANING? REP Foxes “eyes burning, clear gold... malevolent faces... pure hostility, and their golden eyes.”

Male gaze- always watched, evaluated, judged, threatened

MEANING OF FOXES? beautiful but powerless, functional but doomed, named

Foxes raised to be beautiful, like girls

“slippery bodies” like babies, function of girl after marriage

both taken care of but captive, raised for a purpose (1)

Father doesn’t talk with daughter, like doesn’t talk to mother

yet “I worked willingly under his eyes, and with a feeling of pride.” (3)

***“’Like to have you meet my new hired man...  I thought it was only a girl’”

“my mother... did not often come out of the house... She looked out of place” (3)

examples of mother’s work

“In the kitchen... I was given jobs to do”

“As soon as I was done...what she wanted me to do next.”

CC narrator’s feelings “It seemed to me that work in the house... work done out of doors...ritualistically important” (4)

“Wait till Laird gets a little bigger... real help.” (4)

Laird – lord, owner of a property, landlord

Laird- Lord of the house, free to do as he pleases, inheritor of father’s place in the family

Narrator girl name? Not given

“I was pleased with the way... real work”

“use her more in the house” (4)

“regretful way of talking about me.. not like I had a girl in the family at all” (4)

“She was always plotting.”

“It did not occur to me that she could be lonely, or jealous.”

“Who could imagine Laird doing all of my work.”

IRONY “It showed how little my mother knew about the way things really were.” (4)

IMPORTANT? foxes ate horsemeat

“Flora..speed... high-stepping... air of gallantry and abandon” (5)

READ TWO PARAGRAPHS “This winter also I began... I kept myself free.” (5)

“girl” has meaning, very different from “child”

“it was what I had to become.” (5)

“gonna show you” Show her what?

“Flora... reared at the fences” (5)

HORSE IDENTIFIED WITH GIRL’S DESIRE FOR FREEDOM FROM CONSTRAINT

“There was a great feeling of opening-out, of release.”

Springtime – new birth, new awakening, new life

SHOT MACK THE HORSE

HEADING TO CLIMAX OF STORY

“combing my hair and wondering if I would be pretty... the whole scene flashed...” (7)

Is this cultural or biological?

“I  was a little ashamed... a new wariness... in my attitude to my father and his work.” ()

“[Flora] was running free in the barnyard” LIKE THE GIRL

“an unbroken ranch horse”

“’Go shut the gate!’”

“I opened it as wide as I could.” (8)

“got the knives and guns they used... they took [Laird] too” (8)

“Flora would not really get away... no wild country for her to run”

READ “Lately I has been trying... the real excitement of the story was lost.” (8)

“What did you do that for? (9)

crying

“’Never mind’... Words that absolved and dismissed me for good. ‘She’s only a girl.”

“Maybe it was true.”

feminism- women’s rights, equality, not to be defined by gender, sex, same rights as men