WHERE THE ‘I’ ENDS AND ‘SHE’ BEGINS: INTERPRETIVE AUTHORITY AND GENDER PERFORMATIVITY IN ALICE MUNRO’S “BOYS AND GIRLS”

Abstract

This article discusses how family members' explanations of the narrator's behavior in Alice Munro's short story "Boys and Girls" gradually gain greater interpretive weight. Most existing studies discuss the story through gender socialization, division of labor, family space, and symbolic resistance. This article takes a different view. It asks how interpretive authority gradually shapes the narrator's self-understanding while she still retains agency. Butler's (1990, 1993) theory of gender performativity and Foucault's (1977) concept of disciplinary power are used in the analysis. At the language level, the analysis uses Halliday and Matthiessen's (2014) transitivity system. The analysis is divided into three stages and examines material, mental, verbal, and relational processes. At the beginning, the narrator gains recognition through her farm work. She appears as both an Actor and a Senser. Later, verbal corrections, relational classifications, and gendered judgments increasingly shape how her behavior is understood. This article pays special attention to "my new hired hand", Flora's escape, and the father's final statement, "She's only a girl". The study found that the narrator's agency was not simply erased: she could still act, resist and reflect. But family members increasingly shape how her behavior is understood. These gendered interpretations also begin to enter her own thoughts. Therefore, this article argues that gender formation in the short story involves both restrictions on action and a redistribution of interpretive authority. This perspective offers another way to understand how gender norms work in everyday family interactions and shape the meaning given to women's behavior.