Loss Of Innocence In Boys And Girls By Alice Munro

An initiation story’s plot is typically concerned with a protagonist's experience that drives character development. More commonly it is concerned with the loss of innocence in a child adolescent. One example of this category of fictional writing is “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro, in which a young girl found pride in helping her father breed and slaughter animals in a time and place where a woman’s role was to be married and tend to a family. After watching her father kill Mack, a horse the narrator and her brother had grown close to, the narrator’s rebellion against social norms comes to an end, and she begins to accept her role as a woman in society. Through her experiences, the narrator learns that it is not the qualities of courage and bravery but tidiness and attractiveness that
It wasn’t until I was playing in the pool one summer’s day with my older brother and his friends that my perspective changed. While roughhousing and splashing about in the water, my brother put me in a chokehold and held me under the water for what felt like hours, as I tried desperately to break free. I began to lose my senses: their laughter already muffled by the water got quieter and the bright, summer sunlight began to dim. Just before I passed out, my brother released his grip. My panic persisted, despite the absence of immediate danger and replacement of water with oxygen in my lungs. Crying then, I managed to drag myself from the pool and find a dry towel. I didn’t get back in the pool that day. It wasn’t a drastic change that followed, but the next time the boys asked me to join a game of football, I was hesitant to agree. It was more of an awareness of my physical limitations as the boys continued to grow and I reached a