A Jury of Her Peers is a story based on an actual murder that Susan Glaspell covered while working as a journalist in 1901, which she eventually rewrote into a short story in 1917. In the original case, women were not allowed to serve as jurors, whereas in A Jury of Her Peers, Glaspell creates a jury out of the protagonist’s peers, serving as a highly feminist story. Through the use of symbolism, Glaspell highlights a society where men are superior over women, and slowly reveals the oppression and justice for women. Throughout A Jury of Her Peers, Susan Glaspell illustrates the effects of isolation on the absent protagonist, Minnie Wright. The “rocker didn’t look in the least like Minnie Foster – the Minnie Foster of twenty years before … the …show more content…
The “rocker didn’t look in the least like Minnie Foster – the Minnie Foster of twenty years before … the middle rung was gone, and the chair sagged to one side” (157), showing that both Minnie and the rocking chair are not in the good condition they used to be in at one point. It also shows that the rocking chair, symbolizing Minnie, decayed over the years, and that what ruined her was not aging, but her marriage. Minnie, who used to “wear pretty clothes and be lively – when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls, singing in the choir” (162), was depreciated by her husband, John, and imprisoned her in a stereotype that was abused her mentally. This eventually led to Minnie’s actions of brutally murdering her husband. A Jury of Her Peers is a story based on an actual murder that Susan Glaspell covered while working as a journalist in 1901, which she eventually rewrote into a short story in 1917. In the original case, women were not allowed to serve as jurors, whereas in A Jury of Her Peers, Glaspell creates a jury out of the protagonist’s peers, serving as a highly feminist story. Through the use of symbolism, Glaspell highlights a society where men are superior over women, and slowly reveals the oppression and justice for