Two symbols that I have found in “A Jury of Her Peers” is Mrs. Wright’s canary bird and wardrobe. Canary birds are known for their singing. Minnie Wright loved to sing, she used to sing in the choir when she was younger. Mr. Wright did not like her singing, so he made her stop. “A thing that sang.
In “A Jury of Her Peers” Glaspeel introduces the main characters Mrs.Hale and Mrs.Peters along with their husbands Mr.Hale and Mr.Peter. Nowhere in this story do the people involved in the murder appear, they are only mentioned. In this story, Minnie Wright is the wife of the victim Mr.Wright. The scene Glaspell sets enables the reader to uncover the motive for the murder when the women discover the birdcage and the dead bird. These small details are interpreted by the woman, noticing frustration in Mrs. Wright's most recent stitches and her dead pet bird.
The story “A Jury of Her Peers” takes place at Minnie Wright farm in Iowa. Minnie is under investigation because she is a suspect for having killed her husband Mr. Wright. Mr. Perter the sheriff, the county persecutor Mr. Henderson and Mr. Hale who is the victim’s neighbor gather at the scene of the crime to investigate what happened there. Two women accompany the man the sheriff wife and Martha Hales. When the group get to the farmhouse they go to the kitchen and Mr. Peters ask Hales to describe what he had saw at the farm house the previous day.
In “A Jury Of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell, Mr. Wright is found dead in his home with a rope around his neck. Mrs. Wright is the prime suspect, as she acts calm and seems unphased by the incident, though she is fully aware of her husband’s death. When men come to investigate they bring along Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, and while the women are waiting they find interesting evidence. Although at first glance Mrs. Wright does not seem capable of murder because of her calm demeanor, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale conclude she strangled her husband to death as evidenced by the crazily sewn quilt patch, mutilated canary, and unhinged birdcage.
Introduction. A Jury by Her Peers authored by Susan Glaspell narrates the investigative events that occur after the death of John Wright in his house. As neighbors and the Dickson County administration, themes of sisterhood and gender roles appear through the actions and hidden motives of the characters. The book, A Jury by Her Peers, expounds on the silent suffering of women and being perceived as unintelligent while providing justifications for covering up of John Wrights death.
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
The law would convict Minnie as being guilty, while giving her justice would in turn mean allowing certain actions to happen in special circumstances. Their minds are initially set on the fact
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
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.
The same setting in the play read: "... but I opened the door- this door and there in the rocker sat Mrs. Wright." (Glaspell). In "A Jury of Her Peers" the explicit details of the rocking chair tells the story of the woman the Minnie once was prior to her marriage to John. "How did she--look?"
Instead, her husband came home and announced he was leaving her and their unborn child. Mary snapped, and she killed him. In “A Jury of Her Peers”, Minnie is repeatedly referred to as a “housekeeper” by the men. They see her as a
Talking about Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters “the two characters begin to reconstruct the accused woman’s life. They do so through several means; memories of her, memories of their own lives (similar to hers in many ways), and speculation about her feelings and responses to the conditions of her life” (Holstein 283.) The two women immediately placed themselves in Minnie Wrights position. And while reconstructing Mrs. Wright life based on their own memories and emotions they acknowledge the murders missing clue “Minnie’s dead pet bird” (Holstein
Murder today is something that most people do not think about because we are so accustomed to it. Minnie Foster, a lively woman who loses her childhood and becomes a married unhappy lady, so unhappy she kills her own husband. Although at first we are introduced to the bird as the main symbol of the play, we discover that Mrs. Wright is the bird and Mr. Wright is the bird cage trapping her life. By looking at the symbolism of this play we begin to understand that when Mr. Wright killed the canary along with Mrs Wright’s childhood, the motive to kill Mr. Wright was set for Mrs. Wright with the rope.
“A Jury of Her Peers” is a short story written in 1917 by Susan Glaspell based on the true story of the 1900 murder of John Hossack. The story is centered around Martha Hale’s hasty departure from her farmhouse in Dickinson County, Iowa. Martha Hale hates to leave her work undone and her kitchen in disarray, but she has been called upon to accompany a group of her neighbors who wait outside. The group stopped to pick up her husband, Lewis Hale, but the sheriff, Henry Peters, asked that Martha Hale come along as well to accompany his wife, Mrs. Peters, who, he joked, was getting scared and wanted another woman for company.
When the fellow housewives probing around the house of John and Minnie Wright they saw the small things that showed that she was distressed, for example when they saw that the quilt that she had been working on at the time was poorly knotted they took the time to correct the quilting, and when they saw that Minnie’s bird was wrapped in silk and held in a beautiful embellished box they realized why she killed her husband. Although Mrs.Peters is the wife to the sherrif she hides what she finds in the Wright’s home because she can relate to what Minnie was going through. So although when Minnie went to court she presumably sat in front of a jury filled with men she had justice through other women understanding her troubles when it counted. Throughout the story the main idea is to find what was the motive of Minnie Wright to kill her husband, although this story will not just come out and blatantly state the reason, it shows the audience through showing the gender roles of the time and what they meant to the women.
