Boys And Girls

“There was the smell. After the pelt had been stretched inside-out on a long board my father scraped away delicately, removing the little clotted webs of blood vessels, the bubbles of fat; the smell of blood and animal fat, with the strong primitive odor of the fox itself, penetrated all parts of the house. I found it reassuringly seasonal, like the smell of oranges and pine needles.” 

At the beginning of the story, the narrator describes her family’s livelihood as fox farmers as entirely natural, just like the passage of the seasons. She establishes that she is comfortable with dead animal bodies, so that her behavior following Mack’s shooting stands out as notable. 

“But we had rules to keep us safe. When the light was on, we were safe as long as we did not step off the square of worn carpet which defined our bedroom-space; when the light was off no place was safe but the beds themselves.” 

Along with her brother, Laird, the narrator as a child lives through the mystery and fear of her house by creating behaviors to manage their emotions. Laird easily casts aside these rules as he adopts a certain amount of maturity, but the narrator is reluctant to stop practices like singing at night. Even if she does not need the safety, the routine of seeking it feels comforting and familiar, a way to put off maturing.

“My father did not talk to me unless it was about the job we were doing. In this he was quite different from my mother, who, if she was feeling cheerful, would tell me all sorts of things—the name of a dog she had had when she was a little girl, the names of boys she had gone out with later on when she was grown up, and what certain dresses of hers had looked like—she could not imagine now what had become of them. Whatever thoughts and stories my father had were private, and I was shy of him and would never ask him questions.”

The narrator is interested in contrasts between her mother and her father. His silence is a different kind of silence from the imposed silence the narrator faces at the end of the story. Although each character seems to have his or her private world, the narrator initially recoils at her mother’s perceived openness; she seems to see privacy and mystery as powerful.