The linguistic peculiarities of the story

"Boys and Girls" by Alice Munro highlights and emphasises the theme of initiation. The story depicts initiation as a rite of passage according to gender stereotypes and a loss of innocence. Conformity plays a vital role in determining the outcome of the narrator's passage into adulthood. Throughout the story, the narrator is confronted with conflicting thoughts and ideas regarding her initiation into adulthood. Ultimately, she wishes to work with her father, and stay a  'tomboy,' but through a conflict with her mother and grandmother, she comes to realise that she is expected, like the women before her, to adopt the gender stereotype which comes with her growing and passing into adult hood. Similarly, her younger brother, Laird, is also initiated, but into man-hood, something he yearns for.
In order to portray the characters, to describe the settings of events vividly and expressively the author uses such stylistic devices as:

Metaphors: (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 wind harassed us all night, coming up from the buried fields, the frozen swamp, with its old bugbear chorus of threats and misery; my eyes smarting and streaming; the bubbles of fat; the smell of blood and animal fat.- to make the reader better understand the descriptions, to make the descriptions brighter)

Epithets: (I could hear his long, satisfied, bubbly breaths: derisive eyes; winter-paled face – to give Henry evaluative characteristic), (They were beautiful for their delicate legs and heavy, aristocratic tails and the bright fursprinkled on dark down their back” – to contribute to the vividness of the description.)

Personification: “the wind harassed us all night, coming up” – to add expressiveness to the action.

Similes: (I found it reassuringly seasonal, like the smell of oranges and pine needles – the smell of blood is compared to the other smells that the girl finds as rare phenomenon in their house; when snowdrifts curled around our house like sleeping whales – to add expressiveness)

Oxymoron: (Henry didn't answer me. Instead he started to sing in a high, trembly, mocking-sorrowful voice. – to render Henry’s emotions brighter)

Hyperbole: (“It seemed to me that work in the house was endless”– to emphasize).

Imagery: The "odor of the fox itself" (imagery pertaining to smell) is something the narrator describes as "reassuringly seasonal" and a comfort to her at night. Images of light and dark: the "brightly lit downstairs world," contrasted with the "stale cold air upstairs."  Light = warmth and safety; dark = cold and fear.

Further images of light and dark in her room: provide the narrator and her brother with boundaries of safety.  At night, as long as the lights are on, they are "safe."

Henry Bailey's laugh (imagery pertaining to sound): the children "admired" the sound of "whistlings and gurglings...faulty machinery of his chest."  Despite his sickness, Henry Bailey also provides a source of emotional comfort and protection.

Description of the foxes pens as "a medieval town" (sight imagery): symbolizes the safety and security her father is able to provide, both for the foxes and for her.

Description of the "hot dark kitchen in summer" (mostly sight but some sound imagery): shows that the narrator feels caged in by inherently female tasks and contrasts directly with the freedom she feels when working outside, like a man.

The fact that the narrator remains unnamed throughout the story could be symbolic of her search for an identity throughout the story.