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Loneliness In Susan Glaspell's A Jury Of Her Peers

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It is known that loneliness sometimes makes us senseless. In Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of her Peers” loneliness made Minnie Foster irrational. Mrs. Hale assumes that Mrs. Wright is guilty of killing her husband because of her nonchalant answers she gives when being interrogated about her husband’s location. During the story the reader will learn more about Mrs. Wright, or Minnie Foster, and how her personality changed drastically through her twenty years of marriage with John while Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are covering up the tracks that they presume led to murder. They conclude that loneliness made her lose herself which is evident throughout the short story. When Hale describes the events that occurred the day before, she claims that Mrs. …show more content…

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. The bird is Mrs. Wright. It was locked up in a cage as was Mrs. Wright when her husband was alive. He wasn’t a very “cheerful” man, therefore, people didn’t come to visit them. Over the twenty year time period of their marriage she became lonely, which resulted in her buying a bird and the drastic change in personality. The broken door to the cage represents Mrs. Wright’s freedom from her husband. He caused her to be lonely and that caused her to go a little crazy. This madness is what made her feel no sympathy when she realized John was dead. These actions are what led Hale and Peters to come to the result of she killed her own husband. However, the attorney didn’t realize the radical alteration in her personality like Mrs. Hale did, only because he did not know Minnie Foster when she was beautifully happy and full of life. This is evident in the short story when the attorney refers to her as Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Hale

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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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This makes her very angry, causing her to speed up the process of losing her sanity. The death of the bird in “A Jury of Her Peers” gives Minnie the mind of a killer. Because of the way John killed the bird, she knows how his death will happen. Her mindset can easily be seen in her quilting and in her household. Quite distracted, she failed to keep a tidy house.

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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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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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in Schanfield 1656). In the text, Glaspell insist on Mrs. Wright being identification as a “songbird” before she married John Wright (Schanfield 1655). Glaspell chose to do this so the audience can see how an independent woman is happier and better off alone. As her marriage played out with Mr. Wright she slowly morphed into the mold a woman was forced to fit into. In “A Jury of Her Peers” Mrs. Hale (referring to Mrs. Wrights singing and happiness in the context of the bird) said, “No, [Mr.] Wright wouldn't like the bird… a thing that sang” she went on to say “She used to sing.

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Asking for an apron and her little shawl. Worrying about her fruit” (Glaspell). She feels that a woman couldn’t be concerned with these things after committing a murder. Mrs. Hale continues to defend Mr. Wright. “Locking her up in town and then coming out her and trying to get her own house to turn against her” (Glaspell).

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Mr. Hale, who is a witness, his wife, Mrs. Hale and Mr. Peters wife Mrs. Peter who are also introduced to the audience as they were gathering belongings to bring to Mrs. Wright to jail. During this investigation the prime and only suspect is John Wright’s wife, who claims she did not kill her husband. As soon as the characters are introduced in the play it is noticeable both the male and female gender have a role, the men must go find evidence and the females need to make themselves at home and keep to themselves. As the play moves along the males find evidence based on what seems evident and

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Starting with symbolism that pertains to the setting of the play we can talk about the “cold’ that appears throughout the play. The cold is a symbol for her relationship that Minnie had with John and her preserve jars are a symbol for Minnie. The lines “She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire’d go out and her jars would break”(lines 87-89) this can be interpreted as when the fire went out in their relationship they would become cold to one another. Eventually the jars (Minnie) would crack and she would lose her mental stability.

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