Alice Munro's short story, 'Boys and Girls,' has a very interesting detail written into it. The narrator's brother is named Laird, which was carefully chosen by the author. Laird is a synonym for lord, which plays a important role in a story where a young girl has society's unwritten rules forced upon her. At the time of the story, society did not consider men and women equal. The name symbolized how the male child …showed first 75 words of 1043 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1043 total…allowed to do what he pleases. Laird is the lord, as a male he is deemed as the more important of the two, simply because of his sex, while the narrator cast into her womanly role, being of secondary importance. 1 Munro, Alice, 'Boys and Girls,' Introduction to literature, eds. Gillian Thomas et al, third ed. (Toronto: Hardcourt Brace, 1995), p. 528 All subsequent references will be from this edition and will be cited in the text. 4 4