Isabella Cheney Mrs. Clayton DC Lit and Ideas 24 March 2024 A Jury of Her Peers Position Paper Glaspell, Susan. The “A Jury of Her Peers”. The Norton Introduction to Literature. The 11th edition of the book. W. W. Norton and Co. 2013 A man dies and his wife is suspected of murdering him. In Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers”, she uses characterization to show gender inequality between the men and women. The men in this story include the young attorney Mr. Henderson, Mr. Hale, and Sheriff Peters. The story also includes two women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. Throughout the story, the men are constantly making snarky quips and comments at the expense of the women. While Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are trying to be thoughtful about the murder and make insightful comments, Mr. Hale …show more content…
These comments make the women harbor animosity towards the men, though they wouldn’t dare to contradict the men or talk down on them. These egregious comments directed at Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters try to undermine them and their sympathetic tendencies. While Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are trying to be delicate about the state of the house and the feelings and life of Minnie Foster-Wright, the men make fun of the ways of women; therefore, the men are continually putting the women in a lower category of power and respect than them. Another instance of gender inequality that is present in the story is shown near the end by Mr. Henderson commenting, “‘Well, Henry,’ said the county attorney humorously, ‘at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it.’” (Glaspell 504). This humorous comment by the attorney was spoken moments after Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale uncovered the truth behind the murder of Mr. Wright. Moreover, the women are the only one’s in this story that leave the Wright house with a true understanding, while the men leave with superficial evidence that reflects their superficial
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
At the start of the play, all of the characters enter the abandoned farmhouse of John Wright, who was recently hanged by an unknown killer. The Sheriff and County Attorney start scanning the house for clues as to who killed Mr. Wright, but make a major error when they search the kitchen poorly, claiming that there is nothing there ?but kitchen things.? This illustrates the men?s incorrect belief that a kitchen is a place of trivial matters, a place where nothing of any importance may be found. Mrs. Peters then notices that Mrs. Wright?s fruit froze in the cold weather, and the men mock her and reveal their stereotype of females by saying ?women are used to worrying over trifles.? The men then venture to the upstairs of the house to look for clues, while the women remain downstairs in the kitchen where they discuss the frozen fruit and the Wrights. Mrs. Hale explains that Mrs. Wright, whose maiden name was Minnie Foster, used to be a lively woman who sang in the choir. She suggests that the reason Mrs. Wright stopped being cheerful and active because of her irritable husband.
In Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers,” Minnie Foster is accused of killing her husband. This accusation forces Mrs. Peters to choose between the law and her inner feelings. Her husband is the sheriff of Dickenson County, Iowa. It has always been a small, quiet town where nothing really happens. Mrs. Peters is faced with an internal struggle.
The Sheriff, Attorney, and neighbour Mr. Hale look for evidence while the women Mrs. Peters and Hale are left to their own devices in the kitchen. Condescendingly, the men mock the women’s concerns over Mrs. Wright’s stored preserves, its stated: “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.” (Hale, act 1) It’s inferred that women- who care only of trifles, something of little or no importance, must be trifles themselves. Ironically, these said trifles: the quilt, preserves, a little bird- which will be discussed later, are what solves this mystery. A major concern expressed by all the characters is motive; why would Mrs. Wright kill her husband? While discussing the marriage and disposition of the victim, its stated: “Yes--good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him. (Shivers.) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone.” (Mrs. Hale, act 1) Abuses, which have been hinted at all throughout the play are finally spoken of in these lines. Audiences find, that Mrs. Wright- “real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid” - would murder her
The women were no help to the men, but solved the case but also protected Mrs. Wright from any wrongdoing. The three men tried to find a motive, but the case remained unsolved. Susan Glaspell show’s in the two pieces how women are disregarded in investigative matters. Speaking with the females, Henderson and the other men make a key mistake: the women get their identity from their relationship with men. For example, Henderson tells Mrs. Peters that just because she is married to the sheriff, she is also married to the law so she is a reliable to obey the law.
Though men and women are now recognized as generally equal in talent and intelligence, when Susan Glaspell wrote "A Jury of Her Peers" in 1917, it was not so. In this turn-of-the-century, rural midwestern setting, women were often barely educated and possessed virtually no political or economic power. And, being the "weaker sex," there was not much they could do about it. Relegated to home and hearth, women found themselves at the mercy of the more powerful men in their lives. Ironically, it is just this type of powerless existence, perhaps, that over the ages developed into a power with which women could baffle and frustrate their male counterparts: a sixth sense - an inborn trait commonly known as "women's intuition." In Glaspell's story, ironic situations contrast male and female intuition, illustrating that Minnie Wright is more fairly judged by "a jury of her peers."
Social gender separations are displayed in the manner that men the view Wright house, where Mr. Wright has been found strangled, as a crime scene, while the women who accompany them clearly view the house as Mrs. Wright’s home. From the beginning the men and the women have are there for two separate reasons —the men, to fulfill their duties as law officials, the women, to prepare some personal items to take to the imprisoned Mrs. Wright. Glaspell exposes the men’s superior attitudes, in that they cannot fathom women to making a contribution to the investigation. They leave them unattended in a crime scene. One must question if this would be the same action if they were men. The county attorney dismisses Mrs. Hale’s defenses of Minnie as “l...
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.
In Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers”, female characters face inequality in a society dominated by the opinions of their husbands. The women struggle to decide where their loyalty rests and the fate of a fellow woman. Aided by memories and their own lifestyles the women realize their ties to a woman held for murder, Minnie Foster Wright. Through a sympathetic connection these women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters have greater loyalty to a fellow woman than to their husbands and even the law; this greater loyalty ultimately shows the inequality between genders.
“There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.”(Chopin 2). This line comes from the short story “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin in 1894 tells the story of a woman reacting to the death of her husband while at the same time the story makes broader statement about women’s rights at the time. Similarly, the story “A Jury of Her Peers”,written by Susan Glaspell, is written like a detective story. It is about solving a murder case but just like “The Story of an Hour”, there are underlying themes of feminism and commonly
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.
While the setting elevated the storytelling and foreshadowed future events in “The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” taking note of the surroundings and using them to decode another person’s state of mind was integral in “A Jury of Her Peers.” In this story, the reader never actually meets Minnie Foster Wright, the woman who felt trapped in her marriage to the point of killing her husband. Instead, Mrs. Martha Hale, an old friend and the wife of a neighbor, and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, discover Minnie’s secrets while their husbands investigate the Wright house for evidence. The setting is limited to the downstairs area of the home, which contains a kitchen, storage closets, and a parlor. These places in the house were considered “women’s places” during this time period, which is why
For centuries, women were often looked at as housekeepers of the household. It was rare to see women managing businesses or working for the government. Usually, men were the "power holders" of the society and tend to ignore many brilliant ideas from women. Overlooked and overworked, women are yet fighting for their rights to achieve the liberty they have today. Susan Glaspell wrote "A Jury of Her Peers" to secretly embed the unnecessary practiced culture of social structure and subjugation against women, females' forced labor, and the oppression on women in order to explain that society should stop overlooking powerful women and their extraordinary minds. Furthermore, Glaspell was a member of a group of intellectuals who questioned marriage
...t allow her freedom and friendships and may have payed for it with his life. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, knowing and understanding the desperation and alienation that this housewife felt, found the proof of a motive for the murder, despite the taunting and teasing from the men who were suppose to be the ones looking for the evidence. The false ideas that these men had towards all of the females ended up hurting them and keeping them from the truth. Instead of the wives offering up the evidence that was discovered, they decided to hide it from the men to protect Mrs. Wright. The disparaging attitudes presented by the men may have seemed harmless at the time, but it kept them from the truth and it made the women feel like their idea would be disregarded. Ultimately, if you look deeper, this male dominant society was harmful to not only women, but to the men as well.
The men believe that John Wright was a “good, dutiful man” and, therefore, believe Mr. Wright could never leave his house in a mess. Mrs. Hale, on the other hand, believes that Mr. Wright could have very easily played a role in the messy kitchen. Despite this argument, the men believe they are right so they dismiss Mrs. Hale’s efforts to defend Minnie. Later in the play the women are forced to try and navigate their way around the men’s dismissal, just as the idea of patriarchal dominance