Alice Munro's short story, "Boys and Girls," explores the different roles of men and women in society through a young girl's discovery of what it means to be a girl. A close examination of the elements of a short story as they are used in "Boys and Girls" helps us to understand the meaning of the story.
             The story is set in the 1940s, on a fox farm outside of Jubilee, a rural area only twenty miles away from the county jail. The farm is a place that reflects the ingenuity of the narrator's father. The pens for the foxes are arranged in neat rows, inside a high guard fence like a "medieval town". The pens each contain a kennel, a wooden ramp, and dishes attached to the wire fence. The fox farm is the father's domain, a place of hard work and creativity, in which the narrator feels at home. The house itself is the mother's domain, but it is a place that the narrator shuns, as she shuns many elements of the feminine world. The contrast between the girl's concept of the farm and of the house demonstrates the conflict she experiences between her chosen position as her father's helper and her position in society as a girl.
             The point of view of the story is first person. The narrator is a young girl in the process of growing up, who is, at the end of the story, only eleven years old. She is a naive narrator, being so young, and is unreliable in her view of the people around her, especially her understanding of her mother's motives. By writing the story in this way, Munro gives us a look at women's role in society through the eyes of a girl who is just finding out the effect that society's expectations have on her.
             The narrator is the main character of the story. As the protagonist, she is a dynamic character; she experiences changes in her view of herself as a girl and her place in society. The only other dynamic character is Laird, her little brother. At the beginning of the story he is...