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Gender Roles In A Jury Of Her Peers

1489 Words6 Pages

Why Does My House Need To Be Clean For Me To Kill My Husband?
“A Jury of Her Peers” (1917) written by Susan Glaspell: explores how power differences and gender roles shape perspective, such as making men empowered and women belittled. It is written from a third person perspective of a mysterious murder investigation. The characters are Mr. Wright (Victim), Mrs.Wright (Known as Minnie Foster), Mr. Peters (the sheriff), Mrs. Peters (known to the men as the sheriff’s wife), Mr. Hale (First person to hear about the death), Mrs. Hale (Goes by Martha Hale also known to the men as Mr. Hale's wife), and lastly Mr. Henderson (county attorney). In this investigation the victim is John Wright, and his wife Mrs. Minnie Wright is the main suspect. This …show more content…

The men don't think anything about how the quilt might be a clue, not paying much attention to it. This leads to the men not noticing why the women were so invested in the significant piece of cloth. The use of the phrase, “they wonder” shows that he was being sarcastic and judgmental to the women and their thoughts. The use of the sheriff saying, “quilt it or knot it!” also shows that the men don't understand the women's views and perspectives. This all relates to the claim of “Jury”examines how the men glace over the women’s perspective and thoughts” because it shows key proof of this. All of the men's judgment is combined into the spiteful comments that they all …show more content…

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are hiding the main evidence from the Sheriff and county attorney; for instance, the canary. Without this key evidence they will have no reason to blame Mrs. Wright for her husband's death. At this point in the passage, the women are still in the kitchen conversing, while the men are going all over the house looking for clues, only to see the already discovered body. The women are not sure what to do with Mrs. Wright’s bird, but they now know that Mrs. Wright did in fact kill her husband.“Martha Hale snatched the box from the sheriff's wife, and got it in the pocket of her big coat just as the sheriff and the county attorney came back into the kitchen.” (18)The men are not concerned that the women would hide anything from them because they consider women to be inferior. The men consider themselves superior, that they deserve the utmost respect, and that they should come first. For example, this belief is reflected when the men walk in the house like they own it and don't have any regard for anyone else. The women are tired of the mistreatment and finally stand up for themselves, by hiding evidence from the men on multiple occasions. They also stand up for each other, like when they didn't tell the men about the bird, which would prove that Mrs. Wright is

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A prominent piece of evidence that was found in the house was a broken bird cage and the question lies within what her personal interpretation of this object was. With a solemn tone, Martha replied, “I believe Minnie’s husband ripped the cage door open when in a rage and snapped the bird’s neck, so she did the same to him.” It is hard to believe that one’s emotions could so greatly influence their actions but in this case, it seems as if the Wright’s were involved in an unhappy, abusive marriage. To connect back to the bird queries, I also asked Mrs. Hale what she did with the deceased creature that Minnie Wright held so dearly. Martha without hesitation mentioned that she “grabbed it without a second thought” and that she wishes to bury it because Minnie would have wanted that.

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Three women, Minnie Wright, Martha Hale, and Mrs. Peters express sisterhood by hiding of incriminating evidence such as the dead bird while the men fail to prove of her complicity. This essay focuses on themes of sisterhood and gender roles, and the passiveness that manifests in the process of gathering evidence. The theme of Sisterhood. As the plot unfolds to ascertain the murder of John Wright, Mrs. Hale says, “it looked very lonesome this cold morning, it had always been a lonesome place” (Glaspell, 1992), while referring to the house of Minnie Wright.

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A Jury of Her Peers Gender battles have dated back to the beginning of time. Even the men have decided the women are incompetent to understand or the women have thought the men were too incompetent to understand. There was never a happy medium. In “ A Jury of Her Own Peers” a woman is accused of murdering her own husband, throughout the story two women and two men go searching around her house. The men looking for evidence and the women looking for things to take back to Mrs. Wright at the station.

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Mr. Hale and his son, Harry, went upstairs and found the body in the bed with a rope around his neck. Alarmed, Mr. Hale told Harry to go to call the police through a telephone across the road while he stayed behind at the Wright's’ residence. The police then arrived to the scene of the crime and took Minnie into custody. We are here today to prove that Minnie Wright is guilty of the premeditated murder of her husband, John Wright. We have evidence that proves that Minnie Wright had motivation to kill her

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When Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters examine the birdcage, they seem confused about why Minnie Wright would have a cage with no bird. They are surprised to find something that looks out of place, “‘Look at this door,’” Mrs. Peters says in a disturbed tone, “‘It’s broke. One hinge has been pulled apart’” (210).

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As the women start realizing what may have actually happened they decide to hide it from the men. This process adds an aspect of entertainment and the reader can interpret the information on their own through the symbolism of the bird and stitches. Scott Bonn states true crime “allows us to experience fear and horror in a controlled environment where the threat is exciting but not real” (2). Similarly in this short story, little by little the women put the pieces together, engaging the audience as they also start to formulate their own opinion on the motive for the murder. Because this story has no definite end, the reader is free to have their own ideas and not be stuck onto the facts of the actual case but think beyond just the truth.

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The scene begins to unfolds in their minds. Mr. Wright yanking open the cage door, taking out the bird, and breaking its fragile neck was enough to make Mrs. Wright lash out, and in a heat of passion, kill her husband. As the trifles collect,  the women worry that the men will see their findings, and have what they need to prove Mrs. Wright guilty. Though the men believe her to be the murderer, the women are trying their best to hide the evidence that will prove it.

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The men of the group, much like John in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” consider themselves more capable than the women and refuse to consider Mrs. Wright as anything other than irrational. The men leave the women to their “trifles” on the first floor, where they discover a broken bird cage, and the bird’s body, broken, carefully wrapped in a small, decorative box. They realize that Mr. Wright had wrung the neck of his wife’s beloved bird and broken its cage. Mrs. Wright, once known for her cheerfulness and beautiful singing, she stopped singing when she encountered Mr. Wright. Just like he did with the bird, Mr. Wright choked the life out of his wife until, finally, Mrs. Wright literally choked the life out of her husband.

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Wright it is easy to tell that she is not at all upset about her husband’s death. When being asked about the situation she “laughed and pleated her skirt” (4). Mrs. Wright is compared to a bird that is found later in the story. The bird was found in a pretty box with marks around its neck. Hale and Peters say that the death of her bird would have been her motive if she actually was her husband’s murderer, but the author utilizes the bird and its broken cage to be a comparison to Mrs. Wright’s life.

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Minnie’s quilt, the dead bird and its cage, and the kitchen show that living in a man’s world is not easy. In the end, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale recognize that they too have experienced the same loneliness and mistreatment that led Mrs. Wright to murder her husband. The men don't value the women in this story and they don't see them as being very intelligent either. It is for this reason “A jury of her peers” is created. Peers being the women themselves as they stand up, united against the subjugation they have all experienced.

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She sees it as vital information; something that could present them with Mrs. Wright’s state of mind around the time of her death. Mrs. Hale is currently mending the quilt when Mrs. Peters asks where she might “’find a piece of paper, and string.’” This leads Mrs. Peters to discover the empty birdcage inside of the cupboard. Instantly, they both start asking one another questions regarding the cage; they are unable to recall Mrs. Wright ever owning a bird. While talking back and forth, they notice that one of the door’s hinges is broken.

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and I understand?” (Glaspell, 17), which is why they try to hide the evidence at the end. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters know why Minnie killed her husband because they too live in similar households, but the men leading the investigation will not because they are blind to what they do to the women around them. The men continue to throw jabs at the ladies not even knowing the women they are making fun of had just found everything they needed to send Minnie to jail,

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Wright and John Wright. In any crime scene there is a possibility of change through the effort of manmade and social construction, which is why description is very important in any scene. From the similar experiences of the women in the play, they know the truth but hide from the fear of the men who look down upon them. Glaspell cares about the way gender is constructed in the play as well as how the set has been gendered. The men believe that they grant female identity by virtue of the women’s relation to the men rather than through their inherent qualities as females.

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If Mrs. Wright loved her bird so much she would not have been able to kill the bird, therefore Mr. Wright would have been the only one to break the birdcage and kill the bird. The women converse and conclude that Mr. Wright was probably an aggressive and abusive person, “‘But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day

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