A jury of Her Peers
In the story “A jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell the main character who the story is turning around is Minnie Wright who is accused of killing her husband when he was sleeping. Mrs. Peters the sheriff’s wife and Martha Hale an old friend of Minnie are the supporter characters of the story that joined their husbands to visit Minnie. The Story is develops around how Mrs. Peters and Martha Hale are trying to find proves about if Minnie killed her husband, which are a dead bird in the box, the dirty and poor clothes of Minnie, and the disordered house of Minnie.
Mrs. Peters is described in the story as a small and thin with a thin voice. Even though she is a sheriff wife, she did not look like it, but her physical characteristic are completely different about her appearance. In the beginning of the story she can be understanding as a weak person, but actually for the reason of being a sheriff wife she had a smart thinking about a little details
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that are in the story. She is the person who pushes Martha Hale to think out of the box. She did not know Minnie before, but for the way as she looks her house. She can easily understand that something is wrong with this woman. The way as she connected the law with a little details about the dirty house of Minnie shows the smart capacity that this woman has. The weakness of this character is that she is in the shadow of her husband, she is kind of reserved of her opinions because of the authority that has the thinking of her husband over her. "Nothing here but kitchen things," he said, with a little laugh for the insignificance of kitchen things. "Here's a nice mess," he said resentfully. This comments are derogatory about coming of a new idea about what is going on.” For a moment Mrs. Peters did not move. And then she did it. With a rush forward, she threw back the quilt pieces, got the box, tried to put it in her handbag. It was too big. Desperately she opened it, started to take the bird out. But there she broke--she could not touch the bird. She stood there helpless, foolish” (Paragraph 290). She is a smart person, but she did not show too much when it was the time for say what she find. Martha Hale is a farmer worker who is looking fiscally as a strong person, but she is not an ignorant farmer because she thinks more with her life experiences and her feelings about how was her friend Minnie before she married in the time of fined clues. “It came into Mrs. Hale's mind that that rocker didn't look in the least like Minnie Foster--the Minnie Foster of twenty years before. It was a dingy red, with wooden rungs up the back, and the middle rung was gone, and the chair sagged to one side” (Paragraph 27). In this paragraph it is appreciative that she did not visit her friend for a long time and she did not care about it, so what kind of friend she is. She leave her friend alone for 20 years until she knew that her husband was killed. The thing that move on herself to go to visit her was the feeling of guilt. When she sees the way that her friend expressed how was killed her husband was more than obvious that she did it, but she taught her friend as how was her before. In all the story her actions are moving for her feeling of guilt because maybe if Minnie did not feel so lonely in her house and someone looked at the problem that she had with her abusive husband, it would not be necessary that she came to the extreme of killed him. This person is obviously trying to thing positive about what is going on because she is feeling about her. Minnie Wright is looked as the murder and main character of the story.
She is obviously traumatized about what she did to survive of her abusive husband, and she tried to protect herself about the consequences of her acts. "'Who did this, Mrs. Wright?' said Harry. He said it businesslike, and she stopped pleatin' at her apron. 'I don't know,' she says. 'You don't know?' says Harry. 'Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?' 'Yes,' says she, 'but I was on the inside. 'Somebody slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him, and you didn't wake up?' says Harry. 'I didn't wake up,' she said after him” (Paragraph 47). She is an absent character because it did not show what she is thinking or her part of the story. It just shows what she said, but sometimes it is not enough for knowing her as well. Her acts where pushing of her necessity of survive her situation, and it is obvious that she was alone in this fight. The only thing that was with her agony was her little birth, which was killed by her
husband. The three characters are essential in the story because of the part that they turn on. Mrs. Peters gives the investigator for her intelligence, but Martha Hale is the clue for looking at Minnie Wright not as a murder and more as a victim. The potential that gives them the power for take her character so well is that Mrs. Peters is involving more with the law, and Martha Hale is looking more critically with the knowledge that she previously had about her old and forget friend Minnie.
Susan Glaspell was an American playwright, novelist, journalist, and actress. She married in 1903 to a novelist, poet, and playwright George Cram Cook. In 1915 with other actors, writers, and artists they founded Provincetown Players a group that had six seasons in New York City between 1916-1923. She is known to have composed nine novels, fifteen plays, over fifty short stories, and one biography. She was a pioneering feminist writer and America’s first import and modern female playwright. She wrote the one act play “Trifles” for the Provincetown Players was later adapted into the short shorty “A Jury of Her Peers” in 1917. A comparison in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” changes the titles, unfinished worked, and
Seymour Wishman was a former defense lawyer and prosecutor, and the author of "Anatomy of a Jury," the novel "Nothing Personal" and a memoir "Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer." "Anatomy of a Jury" is Seymour Wishman's third book about the criminal justice system and those who participate in it. He is a known writer and very highly respected "person of the law." Many believe that the purpose of this book is to put you in the shoes of not only the defendant but into the shoes of the prosecutor, the judge, the defense lawyer and above all the jury. He did not want to prove a point to anyone or set out a specific message. He simply wanted to show and explain to his readers how the jury system really works. Instead of writing a book solely on the facts on how a jury system works, Wishman decides to include a story so it is easier and more interesting for his readers to follow along with.
The females begin responding “stiffly” rather than “quietly”(7) as before. This adjective usage serves to support the speech even more by allowing readers to see the progression from silence to a bold rebellion in the women regarding their husbands, for “by hiding the canary Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are also going against their husbands” (Bee2). Indeed, this act was the major act of defiance that secured the women’s strengthened devotions to each other rather than their husbands. Peters especially undergoes a drastic transformation when she eventually joins in as “support of her fellow oppressed women” (Block B 1). When, at the climax of the story, the bird is hidden from the men in the sentimental tin box, Glaspell exhibits the tension with the selection of detail. She chooses to focus on the clammy hands of Mrs. Peters as she stuffs the tin away and the quivering voice of Mrs. Hale as she denies knowing any information about the crime. The descriptions of the seemingly miniscule and weakening objects around her house match the “quiet desperation” (Schotland 3) Foster repressed until it overflowed the night before. Considering that the adjectives show how burdensome it is for the women to conceal the evidence, it truly demonstrates how strong the relationships between them has grown based
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.
Mr. Hale describes Mrs. Foster as being “queer” or strange. It is know that people in highly stressful situations can behave in a manner that is considered inappropriate such as laughing at a funeral and perhaps Minnie Foster is in such a situation that mental she is struggling to believe what has happened. She may also be in a state of shock causing peculiar behavior and a lack of judgement. Furthermore, the possible motive that Minnie Foster killed her husband over him killing her bird is weak. Mrs. Hale remembers Mrs. Foster as being a normal girl who people adored and yet how could such a normal person commit murder over the death of a bird. Perhaps the bird had died and she simply had not had time to bury the bird. Minnie Foster’s behavior suggest she was in shock over the death of her husband causing her to act strange not because she killed her husband and further the weakness of the suggested motive that she killed Mr. Foster because he killed her bird jumps to a conclusion without clear
Symbolism is a literary device in which words, phrases or actions allude to something more than their literal meanings. In the short story “A Jury of Her Peers”, a major example of symbolism is the quilt. The quilt is perhaps the biggest example because it can be tied to many other examples of symbolism within the story, and can also be interpreted in different ways.
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.
Mr. Hale found his neighbor, John Wright, strangled upstairs in the Wrights’ house with Minnie Wright, John’s wife, sitting calmly downstairs. With John Wright dead and his wife in jail, Mr. Hale, the sheriff, their wives, and the county attorney all crowded into the Wright’s house to try to find clues about the murder. While the men go upstairs, they leave the women downstairs “.worrying over trifles.” (“A Jury of Her Peers” 264) Unbeknownst to the men, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find clue after clue that would convict Minnie Wright of the murder. Instead of telling the men about the clues, the women hide the clues and the men have no idea what the women have found.
Ortiz, Lisa. Critical Essay on “A Jury of Her Peers.” Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale. 163-166.
Wouldn’t it be awesome to know what everyone is thinking around you at the moment? Or how others view you when the meet face to face with you? Each story that we’ve read the past month contains specific point of views, whether it be through the main character’s eyes or from a bird’s eye view. In life, we are only able to view through our own viewpoint, which is called first point of view. Point of view refers to how one sees the story. There are other points of view, including omniscient, third person limited, first person, and objective (Arp 253). To determine the point of view, one should ask the questions “Who tells the story?” and “How much is this person allowed to know?” and especially, “To what extent does that narrator look inside the characters and report their thoughts and feelings?” (Arp 253). In “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell, she effectively uses third person omniscient to convey through some character
Although countless of story written by numerous authors through out the centuries, they all however have something in common and that is their uses of setting. No matter what kinds of stories are composed, the unique practice of setting builds diverse kinds the moods, the surrounding environment, the characters’ understanding, etc. turn story into lifelike experience. Furthermore, in order to enhance the realism, the author must pay an incredible amount of attention to details and turning words into pictures to deliver that authentic experience. These two short stories “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck and “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell carry out the use of setting to symbolize and accentuate qualities of the characters.
“A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell is mid-twenty century short story concerning themes of patriarchy, gender inequality and crime. The story centers on a murder investigation of a farmer named John, who is the husband of the woman accused of the murder, Mrs. Wright. The problem in the story rises when the county attorney, the sheriff, together with John’s neighbor and their wives visit the scene and the women find two important clues that can supply the motive against Mrs. Wright, and choose to withhold it. Withholding evidence is problematic in many ways: it is illegal, untruthful, and considered a crime. But the illegal acts of the women are the least problematic faults in the story. In the story’s societal context, the men’s oppression
"A Jury of Her Peers", written in 1917, is a short story by Susan Glaspell, loosely based on the 1900 murder of John Hossack. It is seen as an example of early feminist literature because two female characters are able to solve a mystery that the male characters cannot. They are investigating the murder of farmer John Wright. The men tell the women to just busy themselves around the house while they go and do the “real work.” Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff's wife, use their deductive skills and knowledge about housework to conclude what had happened to Mr. and Mrs. Wright, also known as Minnie Foster. A skill the men couldn’t use or take into account.
Although it was difficult to convey at first, I recognized my tendency to divide critical thinking into hypothetical rationale and realistic rationale. For example, I was displeased with the story’s lack of action. So, perhaps if I were a female who was a huge fan of plot, setting, and character driven murder mysteries, then I would have enjoyed the story more. As a seasoned reader of the genre, my instincts would have told me to approach the text with apprehensive patience. Throughout my reading I would be taking note of any suspicions. I would have questioned the significance of minor oddities; like Mrs. Hales recollection of Sheriff Peter’s wife. Furthermore, I may have realized how Mrs. Peters being described as, “someone who didn't seem like a sheriffs wife, for she was small, thin, and didn’t have a strong voice” (Glaspell, 1), meant that she had a character defect which would be exploited at some point. Before eventually finding out the meaning of this foreshadowing, there are several occasions where Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are patronized for their efforts. Mr. Hale even mocks the two women saying, “women are used to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell, 6). Given the era this story takes place in, both women take the high ground and respectfully respond
The story concerns a farmer, John Wright, who is found strangled in his bed; his wife is arrested for the murder. The story¡¯s action begins the following day, when the sheriff, the county attorney, the sheriff¡¯s wife, and a neighbor couple return to the Wrights¡¯ house. The women are there to pick out some clothes for the accused wife to wear in prison; the men, to check over the crime scene.