What are the motifs in Boys and Girls by Alice Munro?

A sense of bravery and independence are recurring ideas. Bravery and independence, those qualities that will lead persons to successfully make their public and professional way in the world can be contrasted to this more private and personal mode of self-valuation. Thus, when a woman writer takes on the problem of female coming-of-age as it might have occurred during the first half of this century, what ensues is a parable about how the girl retreats from the public and enwraps herself in the space of private worries.