Gender Roles In Susan Glaspell's A Jury Of Her Peers

In the short story, “A Jury of Her Peers”, by Susan Glaspell, the author shows how we should perceive gender roles. Susan focuses on the female side of gender roles more often than the male. Only to reveal and focus on the inequality a female is treated because of her gender role. Susan depicts a whole story where the men are the predators and the women are the victims, and how when more women begin to stand up for each other the more you begin to see the destruction of gender roles.

In a world constructed by men and women, we still see a clash between both genders. Men continue to push women down in any way possible. They even created gender roles to tell women what to do. Some people stand up and others stay quiet. We notice the significance

Nick has been given the power to depict the story in whatever way he likes. This allows Nick to question himself to determine what is important in the story. In the middle of the Great Gatsby we are at a place were a lot of things are happening at once, and all of a sudden Nick decides to stop the whole story and talk about something that he feels is very important to bring up. “ … I was standing besides his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with great portfolio between his hands.” (Fitzgerald pg.42) Nick depicts an event when he spent the day in a man's room, and right after he leaves us with four things, “Beauty and the beast … Loneliness … Old Grocery Horse … Brook’n Bridge …” (Fitzgerald pg.42) Fitzgerald approaches gender roles in such abstract ways, that only end with us using our imagination to fill the rest of the story because of lack of details. We can investigate that these four phrases relate to what Gatsby’s portfolio would contain. Nick is almost attracted to the mystery of how Gatsby became Gatsby. When we stare at these phrases we can also sense emotion through each one. “Beauty and the beast” could relate to love and despair. “Loneliness” could also represent the emptiness Gatsby feels. While all this is happening Nick can only imagine this man in his underwear in bed looking at the mystery he hides from everyone. Fitzgerald continues to baffle the audience on how he approaches gender roles. It’s almost as if he is trying to show the audience that gender roles can be looked at in many different ways and how men and women can never be explained with a couple