Comparitive Essay On Alice Munro

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Comparative Essay on Alice Monroe The two stories by Munro that I chose to compare were Boys and Girls, and The Children Stay.

Although I found their themes to be a good topic to compare I chose characters instead. I chose Pauline from The Children Stay and the girl from Boys and Girls. Both characters contrasted a great deal, and from unexpected twists of events changed their entire lives.

Both Characters were very similar. They both were different people at the end of the story then they were when they began. Both the girl and Pauline both wanted to be someone who they were not. More specifically they were concerned about who they were going to be later in life.

To use what I think is a great relationship that Munro uses in The Children Stay, Pauline wants to be Eurydice and her husband wants them to be Romeo and Juliet.

In Boys and Girls the girl liked working with her father. She did not like what was her mother had planned for her. Her brother Laird, once he grew up, was to assist her father and she was to do girl things with her mother. She did not want to be a girl, or so she thought.

Keeping with this same topic these same twists of fate that changed their lives happened in a different way. In Romeo and Juliet their fate was due to bad luck or circumstances. Orphee chooses his fate on purpose. "Orphee is with Eurydice at last." This is the last line of the play. Pauline desire's to leave Brian by choice. To avoid "Romeo and Juliet's" bad luck and circumstances. Simply stated Pauline made a premeditated decision.

The girls' decision was more of the unconscious. When she was young she had lived and breathed like a boy. She even had dreams that boys would have. She could not imagine living life any other way. As she got older during the day she still led a boys life but the stories she told herself at night were changed. Her stories were now leaning toward the feminine side and it was obvious this was the dilemma of who she wanted to be. When Flora ran running to the gate and she was running to close it and she decided instead to open it and let the horse go. At the end of the story when Laird tells his father she did it on purpose he says "she's only a girl'" At the end in her heart she realized this is true.

Even though these two characters led different lives. They both had moments that caused them to see things differently. One happens deliberately and one happened accidentally. These two characters were both simple and complex. Both their lives changed due to circumstance and feelings.