Please read both of these stories and be sure to read additional essay on The Youngest Doll. Do brief focused blog on any one story and any one or two questions below. Try to include a juicy quotation that we can use for discussion:
"Boys and Girls"
This is a story about how gender (not sex) is constructed. Gender is a prescribed set of behaviors that we learn. A note about the calendars: they depict colonization of Canadian territory, overcoming of natives, of animals. They may also be pornographic--connection between subjection of nature and women?
1. How are different "spaces" in the story "assigned" to males or females?
2. How does the daughter initially seek to align herself with father and male identity? What specific things does she do that support her assumed masculine identity?
3. Men have the power/capacity to "enclose" nature (animals and women). How do foxes and horses participate in this metaphor of enclosure, control?
4. Discuss the role of the mother--her movement within and across "spaces" and her desire to enclose daughter? How do others in story also seek to repress girl?
5. Why is Flora important--symbolically and literally for the girl? Why does she do what she does?
6. Story's ending: do you think she gives in, succumbs, to being a "girl" or is there another way to read the ending?
"The Youngest Doll"
Be sure to read the article about Puerto Rico and "Operation Bootstrap" so you understand the social context of this story--the demise of the sugar plantation aristocracy, the rise of sweatshops by American businesses. As you read the story think about what the various characters and events might represent. My questions below lead you to a "mapping" of the various historical events onto the story.
1. The story is an example of "magical realism"--look up and think about what elements in the story seem magical but at the same time real--why is this an effective literary device? For example, the early scene in which the young woman goes for a swim and is bitten by a prawn--how is this literally true but also symbolic? What is she bitten by?
2. How might the various dolls and women in the story also be the "body" of Puerto Rico under change?
3. What do the doctor and the doctor's son represent? Why is the key scene in which the doctor admits he deliberately did not cure the woman of the prawn bite important?
4. The aunt eventually has created 126 dolls of all ages. How might they be connected to the economic events discussed in article?
5. The youngest girl decides to marry the doctor but there is evidence she does not like him--what is the evidence? What is wrong with the doctor?
6. How do you read what has happened at end of story? What has happened to the girl? What is the significance of the prawns? Do the women, the aunt and the niece, have a kind of revenge?
" The Youngest Doll"
ReplyDelete3. The doctor and his son represents men that uses women as objects to get what they want, and to support thief personal needs. They both are very mischievous, wicked, and spiteful. The scene where the doctor admits to his son that he could of cured the aunt's prawn bite but chose not to is important because it portrays his character as a man. "That's true" his father answered, "but I just wanted you to come and see the prawn that has been paying for your education these past twenty years". (Ferre 184). The doctor refused to treat the women for his own special needs. He brags about what he did as if it's a good thing bringing his son to see what's paying his tuition. This was important because the aunts learns the real reason why her leg could not be cured, and why she had to live with the calf in her leg. I think the aunt plotted revenge on the son when she learned the truth about what his father did, because she didn't feel beautiful anymore also. She would deny vists and she felt degraded.
5. The youngest girl doesn't like the son because she notices he is just like his father. Material things is what matters to him. She still chooses to marry him and I think it's because she wanted to help her aunt get revenge, because she herself saw his true colors. "Each day he made her sit on the balcony so that passerby would be sure to see that he married into high society"(Ferre 185). She started to notice that his soul was dark when he starts using her doll given to her by her aunt so make money. He took the dolls eyes out and pawned it to buy a a fancy gold pocket watch. He also wanted the to sell the dolls hands and face.
Their *
DeleteI think that the doctor and the doctor’s son represent greed because they don’t considered the women's feeling. When the doctor’s son married the youngest niece, he removed her wedding doll's eyes for a pocket watch. The doctor didn’t cure the aunt for 20 years because he was using her for her money. At first, the doctor told the aunt that it was nothing. “He prescribed a mustard plaster so that the heat would force it out” (Ferre 180). I think that the doctor knew that the “mustard plaster” didn’t work because he didn’t give her another medicine. I think that the doctor's plan that when the doctor’s son was older, he will be the one to break the news to the aunt. "'You could have cured this from the start', he told him. “That’s true”, his father answered" (Ferre 184).
ReplyDeleteThe romance between the doctor’s son and the youngest niece begins when the son brings bouquets to her, that she took “with the tips of her fingers, as if she were handling a sea urchin turned inside out”. One reason the youngest niece decides to marry the doctor is because she was curious about his sleepy profile and deathly curious to see what the dolphin flesh was like”. After their marriage, the son took her off to live in town. The way the son gets the niece can be compared compared to a hunter, where they catch the animal and hang it up on the wall to show off his prize to anyone that sets eyes on it and be congratulated for his catch. The young doctor only wanted the niece to show her off and not for her.
ReplyDeleteIn the end of the story ferre brings about the Pandora box myth. this is seen when she says “then the doll lifted her eyelids, and out of the empty sockets of her eyes came the frenzied antennae of all those prawns”. In a way this showed all the problems that the men caused the women, which finally came out. But unlike the Pandora box myth the problem wasn’t caused because of the women it was done by the men.
In the story of "The Youngest Doll":
ReplyDelete3. The Doctor and his son both share the same two qualities which are greed and selfishness. The doctor was selfish because he wasn't following the ethics of his profession, instead of curing the aunt when he had the chance; he didn't cure her for the sake of just pocketing the money from each checkup in order to pay for his son's education and his son ended up confronting him about it. "You could have cured this from the start," he told him. "That's true," his father answered, "but I just wanted you to come and see the prawn that has been paying for your education these twenty years." ( Ferre 184) The son also turns out to be the same or perhaps even worse once he marries the niece, by limiting her capacities to just sitting on the balcony so that the whole town would see that he married into high society. This was perhaps something that both the father and the son planned from the beginning in order to end up in a high place in society because at that time in Puerto Rico, men were taking over and replacing the women who were losing their wealth and place in society from the sugar producing aristocracy.
In "Boys and Girls" we see a very distinct gendering of spaces. The home, and especially the kitchen, are the mother's space -- a feminine realm of cooking, cleaning, laundry, and other domestic tasks. We learn that the mother "did not often come out of the house unless it was to do something" and that she appears to be "not touched by the sun", so often is she inside doing this women's work (199). In contrast, the fox pens and the cellar of the house, where the animals are slaughtered, are men's spaces, where the father and his assistant Henry care for and then kill the animals.
ReplyDeleteAt first the daughter attempts to become part of her father's world. She works by his side, caring for the foxes, and is immensely flattered when her father refers to her as his "new hired hand", even though the man he's speaking to responds by saying that she's "only a girl" (199). She also hugely resents her mother's efforts to get her to do more housework, not realizing at the time that her mother may simply want companionship and help in her hard tasks. Eventually, however, she rejects participation in the masculine world -- symbolized by her letting the horse Flora run through the gate -- and leaves it to her brother Laird to take up these masculine tasks.
I love your analysis of letting Flora run through the gate and leaving it to her brother...Because the brother does go with them and then comes back after they butchered the horse. So it's almost as if that was the moment that they both left behind their childish (not boy or girl) ways and stepped into their gender roles.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn the story Boys and Girls, we see the spaces assigned not to the children but to the parents first. The mother is inside doing the housework while the father is outside doing the "manly" work like skinning the foxes and shooting the horses. The children are still so young yet they are expected to be placed in their gender roles right away. The only way the girl gets away with helping and hanging around her dad is because her younger brother is not quite old enough to start helping the dad so he needs his daughter as his extra hand but the mother is constantly trying to bring the girl into the house to help her as the girl describes when she overhears her mother say to her father "And then I can use her more in the house," and "I just get my back turned and she runs off. It's not like I had a girl in the family at all." The gender spaces are already defined because the mother looks at the daughter as another house worker and the little boy has the freedom to be outside and enjoy the weather and not be bothered with the duties of cleaning and cooking and laundry etc. The daughter also notes that the mothers skin is "not touched by the sun" (199) so we know that she is constantly in the house doing the house work.
ReplyDeleteFlora the horse is symbolically important because I feel she represents the girl. She always helped her dad with the outside work duties but instead of closing the gate for her father she decides to leave it open and free Flora. Because Flora had been assigned to a space just as the daughter had been. Flora's space was to be shot and provide meat for the family and the daughters space was to be a house wife and tend to the chores but she felt bad for the horse. She thought of a life better for the horse like the stories she made up when she was going to sleep. She let the horse escape because that's what she wanted to literally do. Escape the gender roles she was unfortunately confined to. But then we see her father did get to kill Flora and this I think opens the daughters eyes and makes her realize one cannot escape so easily something they were born to do and are expected to do so she falls in line with what she is expected to do as a girl by the end of the story.
“Boy and Girls” by Alice Munro is a deep story about discovering one’s gender. At first the narrator is frightened and very suspicious when she begins to uncover the meaning of the word girl and what this meant for her. The truth is she had always been a girl inside. There are moments in the story where she shows glimpses of traits which we associate with femininity. For example, “Whatever thoughts and stories my father had were private, and I was shy of him and would never ask him questions” (Munro 199). We also see her blushing when her father refers to her as his “new hired hand” (199). It could be debated that this was simply the shyness of a child but it does seem like something we would more likely see in girls. She also mentions her mother “making a dress of the difficult style I wanted for me to wear….” (200). The key words here being “style I wanted”. I know when I was that age, I wanted nothing to do with dresses no matter the style. Even if wearing a dress was the only option I would not have “wanted” a particular style. Our narrator’s preference indicates interest. The narrator also sets Flora free—this empathy she shows for the animal and the new found shame she had felt regarding her father’s work shows her developing sensitivity which is correlated with being a woman.
ReplyDeleteWhen she is eleven years old and behaving as what we might call a tomboy, the people around her began to tell her how she should be carrying herself. She rebels against these commands and that is how she “kept [her]self free” (200). Mature beyond her years she also realizes, “A girl was not, as I had supposed, simply what I was; it was what I had to become (200). She probably meant “had to” as in it was mandatory to fulfill everyone’s expectations but in the end we see that she also had little choice because nature took over and filled her with sugar and spice. She begins to dream differently. She focuses more on clothing and boys and being saved rather than being the hero. The things being said around her are not what push her to become a girl. Although the comments being made could impact the type of girl she would become. Negative associations with being a girl are riddled throughout the story, such as, “I thought it was only a girl” and “Wait till Laird gets a little bigger, then you’ll have a real help” (199). The most important example is a the sad ending where her heart is broken by father who she once idolized, “Never mind…. She’s only a girl”(202).
So for me, succumb has a negative connotation which I don’t agree with. Granted, she did not embrace with joy the notion of being a girl (at least not at this time) but it was something that just was. Just like setting Flora free, “I did not make any decision to do this, it was just what I did” (202).
The air of sadness was more about the change in the relationship between herself and her father.
The aunt created dolls in the figure of her nieces, bringing them to life in a sense, the girls are seen a these beautiful girls from childhood to adulthood capturing every moment. Everyone than gets their final doll when married. Now the youngest gets hers and begins to realize her husband is a a greedy man because uses her beauty to help build himself up, such as the father who leaves the prawn inside the aunts leg taking advantage, causing them both to be uncomfortable on life. Putting her on display and using the dolls pieces to trade for money or goods shows her that he has no real love for her asides her beauty. Later after he can longer find the doll her realizes that his wife is not breathing as she sleep. Not knowing as her disfigured the doll he was taking apart his wife's life as well,
ReplyDeleteThe doctor and his son represent the control men would have over women but taking advantage of them, for example the doctor leaves the prawn in the leg, the son puts his wife on display for the world to see he has the finest of fine life, like the prawn they were like leeches, latching on taking life from the women.
Towards the end of the story the niece tends to gain her life back by leaving him to question why she has no heart, piecing together the fact she left him with the antennae of the prawns who has latch onto the aunts leg cause discomfort.
The short story Boys and Girls was set on a farm where the family of the narrator resides and raises silver fox for pelting. This was how they made money. As far as the characters go, there is the mother, father, her younger brother and Henry who works on the farm. So the narrator is surrounded by three male characters and one female, her mother.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part, we see that the men were the ones who did all the farming while the mother stayed in the house. You could tell that she never really went into the barn or outside of her "space" in the house. The narrator commented and said, "It was an odd thing to see my mother down at the barn" (199), and even when she did, it was to do a chore that was associated with women. Again the narrator says that when she came out of the house it would be to "wash potatoes or hang out the wash" (199).
The mother was a home maker and was concerned with all the food preparations, making jams, jellies and pickles with all the fruits and vegetables. She would even designate jobs for the narrator to do in the kitchen. But she hated the hot house in the summer. she says that "it seemed to me that the work in the house was endless, dreary and peculiarly depressing" (199).
The narrator does not feel like this is her place, to be in the kitchen or doing chores around the house with her mother.
Her father actually gives her a job to do around the farm, and that is to carry water for the foxes, which she thinks is very important. In fact, she might have the thoughts that work in the house is frivolous and "work done outdoors, in her father's service, was ritualistically important" (199).
However, we see that the mother of course didn't feel the same way, she would even complain to the father about her running away from her chores around the house and even told the father that when their son was older, he would be of more help to him, or "real help",
The mother clearly does not see any value in having her daughter worn on the farm.
Even men outside of the farm shared the same sentiment as the mother when the salesman came around and the father introduced her as his "hired hand", the man responded with "i thought it was only a girl" (199)
Additionally, we see that when the grandmother came to visit, the narrator heard comments made about her behavior, "girls dont slam doors, girls keep their knees together when they sit down" and when she asked questions, they'd tell her "that's none of girl's business" (200).
In many ways, we see that the narrator was very young and impressionable. She was at the time doing whatever she wanted to do, what she thought was more important.
Obviously, the mother was trying to teach her the ways a girl should behave and things girls should be doing.
Eventually, without even realizing what was happening, the narrator "grew" into a girl. Her stories changed from her being the savior, to the damsel in distress. She was more concerned with the details about her hair and what she was wearing.
I think this was the period where she transitioned from being just a child without a gender, into a girl.
The entire story was really concerned with the place of a man and woman. Men belonged on the farm, doing all the outdoor work and women in the house and kitchen.
ReplyDelete6. Story's ending: do you think she gives in, succumbs, to being a "girl" or is there another way to read the ending?
ReplyDeleteIn the end the narrator becomes one with her feminine side only because her father acknowledges it. Throughout the story when her mother tries to tell her to do more girly things she blows it off because she doesn’t respect her opinion. However when for the 1st time in the story her father acknowledges her gender she doesn't go against his word. He states “She’s only a girl,”(Murno 5). The narrator then states “I didn’t protest that, even in my heart. Maybe it was true”(Murno 5). She doesn’t argue with his judgement because she trust’s her father as well as look up to him. In her mind her father knows best and if he believes deep down that she is truly a girl and that her actions are based on her gender then she will not argue it.
Flora, the mare in "Boys and Girls,” represents freedom for the girl in the story. Beauty, grace, and independence are what she sees in Flora, and the girl makes the conscious decision not to participate in its destruction. She has learned that the world beyond the gate is no more free than that within the gate. She transitions into women's spaces as she rejects the male "job" of destroying the gallant and feisty horse (and her self-image). This was one of my favorite stories because the girl, despite the wall of male influences around her, comes to see that the "ritualistically important" work of the men (Munro 2) has stripped them of something more important, and that is there natural, childlike connection to nature. She accepts her transition into women's spaces as she internalizes what it means to be free.
ReplyDeleteThe narrator in the story does not “succumb” to being a girl. She will always love and respect nature because she understands now that being at arms length from it protects it from man’s competing interests. By becoming a girl, she has accepted her (woman’s) place alongside nature, which allows her to continue to be who she really is.
. How are different "spaces" in the story "assigned" to males or females?
ReplyDeletein the story "Boys and girls" there at multiple places where men were only allowed as well as women. For women, the kitchen was the usual place where is was women space. We obviously know that back in the days, all women were looked down upon to be only in the kitchen since they were "weaker" then men. In page 199 at the bottom it says " It was an odd thing to see my mother down at the barn. She did not often come out of the house unless it was to do something - hang out the wash or dig potatoes in the garden". this clearly proves that women weren't really seen outside unless if it was to bring it inside for the kitchen.
For the men spaces, there are multiple. In this story, the spaces that were for men were usually where the animals and the hungering gathering of animals. for example, the narrators dad had a basement where he would skinned the animals. no one would go there but him. Then theres the Kennel, where the foxes lived. The dad had built something where the foxes can be gathered together. and the Stables, where the horses were. Mens space was mainly outside where the animals were and doing the "hard work".
For those interested in gender construction, while searching background for my creative essay, I found a photo of a young Guy de Maupassant dressed "back in the day." He grew up to be manly despite his skirt, and very cultured. Here's a link where you can see the pic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_de_Maupassant#cite_note-2
Deletein the story boys and girls, the young girl does hard labor that usually would be for a man, but she had no problem doing and completing the task along side her father, her mother wants her to be in he kitchen with her instead ofout in the fiel. she enjoys the smell of the foxes when her father guts them and hangs them mean while her mother hates it, when her grandmother comes to stay with them her grandmother stresses the difference between what a young man and young womens role is " women are to be seen and not heard" be in the kitchen not in the yard" but it was as if they were forcing her to be something is isnt really inside. but she than begins to feel that she doesnt belong once her father becomes upset with her for causing extra work, he yells causing her to cry and states" SHE"S JUST A GIRL" she felt as if her father expected her to softness up and cry because that is something a women would do, expose their emotions, when a man just take the yelling,criticism and hard talk. she than connects that she is a girl someone who is soft caring and loving but enjoys the boys works showing that she is not weak at heart
ReplyDeleteAlice Munro deconstructs gender identity in a patriarchal society through the eyes of a blossoming adolescent girl coming to terms with the masculine and feminine role distribution that occurs on a fox farm in her story "Boys and Girls". The narrator identifies as masculine early in the story before she realizes that there are specific roles for each gender and “spaces” that the feminine gender is supposed to occupy. She knows early on, although she is in denial, that as a girl she will only ever be allowed to participate in feminine tasks on the farm. Although she is allowed to help out now, because she is still young, when she grows older her useless brother Laird will ultimately take over the farming duties.
ReplyDeleteConfinement is a major element in the story as well. Munro metaphorically suggests that men are in control of all things and designate specific areas for where they want women to remain. Munro elicits, “the foxes inhabited a world my father made for them. It was surrounded by a high guard fence, like a medieval town, with a gate that was padlocked at night" (Munro 2). The father keeps the animals where they belong and the women where they belong, in the kitchen and in the bedroom. The narrator herself points this out when she see her mother down at the barn when she says, “I felt my mother had no business down here” (2). Although she does not realize it at that moment, there is no hope for her to escape these gendered spaces either. In an act of defiance she sets a horse that is to be put to death free, and in so doing she is symbolically trying to let herself attain freedom as she blooms like a flower, into a woman. Ultimately, her defiance is barely given a second thought. When her father learns that the narrator is the one responsible for letting the horse escape, he barely musters enough energy in belittling her when he proclaims, “Never mind…she’s just a girl" (5).
In the Youngest doll , The Magical realism is a mystic element that Latin American and even in the Caribbean culture that incorporate realistic fiction . The aunt getting bitten by the prawn show that her life was stop , the plans she had for herself were now to devote her time to her nieces and make dolls for them . Her hopes and dream now were in their fate . Each doll she make every year and there was 9 of them , started from an early age .Each doll represent her nieces and her . " This is how you were when you were a year old , this is you at two , and like this at three ,measuring each year of their lives against the hollow they left in her arms " The aunt will nurture the dolls rock them and sing to them as her nieces got older and The aunt will have an empty space in her arm . Another way the aunt made show the dolls and a family connection between her nieces , the dolls and her was by leaving the glass eyeballs in the stream for a few days they can recognize the prawn's antennae . The aunts pain of the prawn became one , I feel the aunt release an energy to recognize the eyes of the dolls and protect her nieces from danger . I believe this why at the end since the doctor sold the eyes of the doll , it was like he sold his wife , the prawn and the youngest has become one just like the aunt and the prawn become one after she was bitten .
ReplyDeleteThe youngest doll marries the doctor but doesn’t really love him. “ She made up her mind to marry him because his sleepy profile and also because she was curious to see what dolphin flesh was like’’. She basically married him because that what the other dolls did and because of his status. The youngest wasn’t happy. “motionless inside her cubicle of heat, the youngest began to suspect that it wasn’t only her husbands silhouette that was made of paper, but his soul as well’’. The youngest knew that all her husband cared about was his status and money. Which indicated to her that he wasn’t a warm hearted person.
ReplyDelete