In this essay I would like to explore the influence the parents held on their daughters in the stories "Boys and Girls," by Alice Munro, and "The Loons,"" by Margaret Laurence. In both stories the fathers held the very important role of being the primary influence on the narrators. I feel as though the fathers were the primary influences in their daughter's lives and that their influences went against their daughters' nature and ultimately failed them, while the mothers' influences which fell in line with the girls' true nature went unheard. Each story was extremely different, yet in each one the narrator struggles to meet their fathers' expectations only to have their natural tendencies prevail.
Beginning with "Boys and Girls"," the narrator's father puts a lot of pressure on his daughter to be masculine. In their household the role of the men is glorified and the narrator extends this reverence. Her father imposes a very "manly"" influence and at the beginning of the story her father is her hero, the man she strives to be. "I worked willingly under his eyes, and with a feeling of pride.˜Like to have you meet my new hired hand.' I turned away and raked furiously, red in the face with pleasure "(Munro, 3). This quote shows that as disconnected as their relationship was, the narrator worked vigorously to meet her dad's expectations and that her dad's influence had dropped her own perception of women low enough that being a hired hand rather than his daughter was a step up. This was a very destructive influence as it destroyed the narrator's sense of self and made her to aspire to be something that she wasn't and to please a father that didn't deserve or care for her devotion. By the end of the story the narrator's natural inclinations overcame her and she crossed her father. The story and with her crying feeling worthless, " He spoke with resignation, even good humor the words which absolve and dismissed me for good.
