Andy is a nine-year-old girl - small for her age - who ventures into the dark, bitterly cold woods with three men on a doe hunting trip. doe. As a tomboy, she is used to participating in masculine activities, but this one forces her to take on the challenge of deciding which of the two worlds she wants to live in: her mother's or her father's. Previously, she had always been Dad's "sweetheart" or "punkin'", always by his side, such as refusing to go in the ocean with her mother and staying with her father only waist-deep. the previous summer. However, on this hunting trip, Andy moves away from the male lifestyle and joins his mother as a female. In his short story “Doe Season,” author Michael David Kaplan uses symbolism to highlight gender roles and the strict separation of masculine and feminine domains. [5) In the story, the narrator comments that Andy's mother is probably at home washing dishes and making coffee, which is considered the woman's role in this story. The author shows that women are expected to stay at home and take care of the home and family while men take care of them. Andy's mother even cooked a meal for the hunting party and, as expected, it was Andy who cleaned up after the meal. The doubt expressed by the men as to whether or not Andy would be able to shoot the doe and their surprise when she does so shows that it is unorthodox for women to participate in these masculine activities because it is not not their domain. They are expected to take care of life, even animals, while men are the tough ones who are capable of killing it. After shooting the doe, Andy acts like what is expected of women and that is ultimately what pushes her to accept that she is one. Both women and men play very stereotypical roles of what women and men should be and therefore symbolize how gender roles apply to