Men always have the tendency to judge too quickly. In “A Jury of Her Peers”, by Susan Glaspell, Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Peters, and Minnie Foster and Mr. Henderson are attempting to look for the motive of Minnie killing her husband. The story starts by Mr. Peters informing the group, except for Minnie, while she waits in jail, that when he stopped by the day before to give Mr. Wright a telephone because the couple lived really removed from the rest of the town, he asked Minnie where Mr. Wright was and she calmly answered that he had been hung the night before. Then, the men head upstairs to look at the crime scene, while the women sit around the kitchen to talk. Accidentally, the women figure out the motive of the murder by talking about kitchen supplies, “trifles” as the men call it. They decided not to inform the men to keep Minnie from being convicted because her husband was equally guilty as her. In the short story, “A Jury of Her Peers”, Glaspell employs strong details and details devices to argue that the purpose of the story is how Glaspell portrays men, that a person must not be judged based on off of the external appearance and that the little details in life always are important.
In “A Jury of Her Peers” language devices Glaspell applies that men always doubt women and their abilities and it concludes that Glaspell demonstrates men as judging too quickly. “‘But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?’” (Glaspell 8). Mr. Hale states this when then men are preparing to go glance upstairs at the crime scene to search for clues and preparing to leave the women in the kitchen to talk. “In fact, the men openly doubt the women’s ability to read a crime with their subjective experience” (Ortiz 164). The men assume that wo...
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... men always doubt a woman’s abilities. Men never appreciate the little in details in life and men think they are superior over women. Unlike the men predicted, the women figure out the murder mystery. The men never expected the outcome because they were being stereotypical over the women. A person must never be judged by their appearance.
Works Cited
Glaspell, Susan. “ A Jury of Her Peers.” Everyweek. n.p. 5 Mar. 1917. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
Hallgren, Sherri. “ A Jury of Her Peers.” Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jenny, Cromie. Vol. 41. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 293-300. Print.
Hedges, Elaine. “Small Things Reconsidered: Susan Glaspell's ‘A Jury of Her Peers.’” Woman's Studies. 12 (1986): 89-110. Literature Resource Center. Gale. Web. 6 Apr. 2014.
Ortiz, Lisa. “ A Jury of Her Peers.” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 163-166. Print.
In A Jury of Peers by Susan Glaspell, the story revolves around the sudden death of John Wright. There are five characters that participate in the investigation of this tragedy. Their job is to find a clue to the motive that will link Mrs. Wright, the primary suspect, to the murder. Ironically, the ladies, whose duties did not include solving the mystery, were the ones who found the clue to the motive. Even more ironic, Mrs. Hale, whose presence is solely in favor of keeping the sheriff s wife company, could be contributed the most to her secret discovery. In this short story, Mrs. Hale s character plays a significant role to Mrs. Wright s nemesis in that she has slight feelings of accountability and also her discovery of the clue to the motive.
Gunn, G. (1994). Trials and interrogation of Anne Hutchinson. In G. Gunn, Early American Writing (p. 159...). New York: Penguin Books.
Margaret Wente’s Globe and Mail article on what women could learn from men presents itself as dogmatic and controversial. Wente’s intent is to persuade their readers into believing that men have become a scapegoat for society yet women could learn lessons from men. Although Wente does have a clear purpose in explaining what women could learn from men, her argument is weakened by her lack of substantial evidence and her appeal to emotions being manipulative.
Minnie Foster can be described as the town’s social butterfly. She was very involved in local activities. When Mrs. Winnie Foster met her future husband, Mr. Wright, he seemed to be “Mr. Right.” Minnie discovered the years of her married life changed her a lot more than just her last name. In Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” the former social butterfly, Minnie Foster Wright is shown to be a dynamic character through her surrounding, husband, and actions.
Glaspell, Susan. "A Jury of Her Peers." Literature and Its Writers. 6th ed. Boston, New York:
The central theme in “A Jury of Her Peers” is the place of women in society and especially the isolation this results in. We see this through the character, Minnie Foster and her isolation from love, happiness, companionship and from society as a whole. Not only does the story describe this isolation but it allows the reader to feel the impact of this isolation and recognize the tragedy of the situation.
and Trifles and 'A Jury of Her Peers,' by Susan Glaspell." Atlantis 24.1 (June 2002): 299-
Ortiz, Lisa. Critical Essay on “A Jury of Her Peers.” Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale. 163-166.
In Trifles, the play takes place at an abandon house at a farm where John Wright and his wife, Minnie Wright lived. John was killed with a rope around his neck while his wife was asleep. The neighbor, county attorney and sheriff came to the crime scene for investigation. Along with them came their wives, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters; they were told to grab some belongings for Mrs. Wright that she may need while she’s in custody. Once they all entered the home the men dismissed the kitchen finding it as unimportant. The three men focused more on legal regulations of the law. The play was mostly revolved around the women, discovering the motive through “trifles” and other symbolic things that had significance to Minnie’s guilt. When Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters understood the reason behind the murdering they hid the evidence from their husbands, and kept quiet. Many readers would visualize this play as a feminist point of view due to women’s bonding in discovering Minnie’s oppressive life after marriage. However Glaspell, provokes two ethical paradigms that have different perspectives of justice. Glaspell uses symbolism to characterize women’s method in a subjective way, by empowering themselves through silence, memories of her and their own lives as well as having empathy about her sit...
11.) The Trial of Lizzie Borden, with a history of the case" by Edmund Pearson
In the story “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell, Mr. Lewis Hale arrived at the Wright house to find that his neighbor, John Wright, had been strangled in his sleep. Hale asked John’s wife, Millie Wright, a few questions about what had happened. Suspiciously, Mrs. Wright’s dry answers didn’t add up. Now the sheriff, the county attorney, Mr. and Mrs. Hale, and Mrs. Peters the sheriff’s wife, are investigating the house. Although Mrs. Wright claims to be asleep during her husband’s murder, the women conclude that she strangled her husband as evidenced by the broken bird cage, the slaughtered canary, and the errant quilt patch.
In the play Trifles, Susan Glaspell brings together three women through a crime investigation in the late nineteenth century. Glaspell uses symbolism, contrast of sexes, and well-constructed characters to show that justice for all equally important to finding the truth.
Glaspell spent more than forty years working as a journalist, fiction writer, playwright and promoter of various artistic. She is a woman who lived in a male dominated society. She is the author of a short story titled A Jury of Her Peers. She was inspired to write this story when she investigated in the homicide of John Hossack, a prosperous county warren who had been killed in his sleep(1).Such experience in Glaspell’s life stimulated inspiration. The fact that she was the first reporter on scene, explains that she must have found everything still in place, that makes an incredible impression. She feels what Margaret (who is Minnie Wright in the story) had gone through, that is, she has sympathy for her. What will she say about Margaret? Will she portray Margaret as the criminal or the woman who’s life has been taken away? In the short story Minnie Wright was the victim. Based on evidence at the crime scene, it is clear that Minnie has killed her husband; however, the women have several reasons for finding her “not guilty” of the murder of John Wright.
Hurston, Zora Neale. “The Conscience of the Court”. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Cassill, RV. New York: Norton & Company, Inc. 2000. 340-350 Print.
Catherine Mackinnon’s radical feminism theory argues that societally is patriarchally dominated by males (MacKinnon 16). The legal system therefore has an inherent male bias. As seen in Susan Glaspell’s short story, “A Jury of Her Peers,” the male-dominated jury would not have acknowledged the psychological trauma of Mrs. Wright’s situation. The facts of the case would have proven her guilt, but the male-dominated legal system would not have accounted for the experiences of Mrs. Wright. As domestic women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters were able to identity with Mrs. Wright and understand her