The Found Boat

Analysis

The short story, “The Found Boat” by Alice Munro, is about a group of children living in a small town, the story takes the children on a sort of adventure. The story is written in first person omniscient objective, which shows all but leaves the meaning up for interpretation. This experience involving children uses symbolism to depict a greater meaning. The conflict experienced in this short story is man vs. society. We can see throughout the story how the men’s role back in the time this took place was significantly greater than the women’s. The women was thought of as the home maker, the men were greatly respected and often times thought themselves better than women, this is revealed through the children. Towards the beginning we see the segregation of the children. The boys and girls do not talk to each in direct conversation, other than mocking them, or speaking rudely to one another. However, we see them getting closer as they begin working on the boat and we see once again the gender role as Clayton tells, not asks, Eva to, “go in and heat this on the stove.” Eva does so submissively. Through the time spent together the girls and boys grow closer, the boat finally gets finished and they all go to test it out. We see then the rising action of the plot. They all become friends, and later play truth or dare. The climax then occurs while during their little game, where gender roles start to diminish and equality seems near, Clayton puts Eva back in her place and the roles are once again established. In the end the girls quickly get over the fact that the boys left them there and they go back to the way things were before.

Response

This book brought the characters to life in my head. I enjoyed the the interesting dialogue between the children because it reminded me of how it was when I was little. When you are young there are always rivalries between the boys and girls, and often times at the end of the day despite the differences you were all friends and thats what this book reminded me of. The way they are all starting to realize who each other is also is significant to me. When the girls realize Frank is referring to the boat as, "she," they acknowledged that affection and they saw him differently then the rest. They looked at each of the boys as individuals and saw there strenghts. This is never done in reverse, none of the boys ever see the girls differently than just young girls, at least the author never reveals it if they do. This is significant, and shows the natural role women play as being under the man. Eva's name in itself is significant because it symbolizes Eve from the Bible, and in the end her place was put under the man, just like in the Bible. This story did a great job of taking something small and to most adults unimportant and made it a story of great meaning.