CDA of Alice Munro's 'BOYS and Girls'

Gender Inequality explicitly deals with

social inequality and domination which

is “enacted, reproduced and resisted by

text and talk.” (van Dijk)

Traditional Gender

Roles:

Society said that girls did the “inside”house work and prepared the food, andthe men did the dirty “outside” jobs andworked on the farm.

US & THEM:

“Why weren’t you watching him?”

It is a complaint made by her parents. They

scold her due to irresponsibility to take care off her brother, while she herself is an immature girl.

Laird’s power as a male child:

WORD CHOICES:

• “Laird” means Lord- a name which conforms him asa man of superior sex while the “girl” has secondaryimportance.

• The father “raised” foxes keeping in a worldsurrounded by a “high guard fence, like a medievaltown, with a gate that was padlocked at night.”

• During his meeting with wife, the father used towear his "stiff bloody apron on, and a pile of cut-upmeat in his hand."

• “Heroic calendars”, “cold blue sky”, “treacherousrivers”, “magnificent savages”, “strong primitiveodour”, “penetrated”, “reassuringly seasonal”,“derisive eyes”, “faulty machinery”

Use of Adjectives:

• "I had never disobeyed my father before.“

• The girl is "too used to seeing the death of animals.”

• “I put down my fork.”

• “My father scraped away delicately the little clotted

webs of blood vessels, the bubbles of fat.”

ALLUSIONS:

• Robinson Crusoe is a favorite book of her father.

• “Heroic Calendars” supplied by the Hudson’s Bay Company or the Montreal Fur Traders and a picture of the Battle of Balaclava hang on the walls of the kitchen.

• “King Billy” is another allusion which highlights her interests in heroic wars and such dreams of male heroism conforms her trust in male domain.

Use of Emotive Language:

• “A girl was not, as I supposed, simply what I was; itwas that I had to become.”

• “I was on Flora’s side… I did not regret: why shecame running at me and I held the gate open, that wasthe only thing I could do.”