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More handpicked essays just for you.
Essays on women in literature
Elements of feminism in literature
Elements of feminism in literature
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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.
Why must women go through this? Women have suffered the fate of being held second class by most men for ages. Throughout times women’s rights that have come around and are better, but there are still many trials they must go through today. People watch every day as women get put down by men and even other women at times that say, “that’s just how things are.” When will these types of false accusations based off stereotypes come to an end?
Anatomy of a Jury, written by Seymour Wishman, is a captivating murder mystery set in 1982 in Essex County, New Jersey located in a tension filled criminal court. Anatomy of a Jury is a nonfiction novel that employs the research conducted by the University of Chicago Jury Project to investigate into the grueling process of selecting a jury for the trial of a criminal case. This could sound as if we are indulging into a book with two different premises from a quick glance. That is Seymour Wishman’s point that he is trying to get at by doing so. Seymour Wishman, a renown criminal lawyer, wanted a chance to inform the public about the captivating institution of the jury selection in American courts, but needed a platform in which to do so.
At age 24 in December of 1900, Susan Glaspell, a legislative reporter for the Des Moines Daily News at the time was employed to cover the highly sensationalized murder of John Hossack. His wife Margaret Hossack had been the prime suspect and was in fact convicted of the crime and sentenced. However, one year after her incarceration, her conviction was over turned and the second trial in 1903 resulted in a hung jury. She was never retried and the case remains unsolved to this day. After the case ended Susan Glaspell quit journalism to pursue a career in fiction.
In Susan Glaspell’s short story, A Jury of her Peers, Mrs. Peters is torn between siding with her husband, the sheriff, or Mrs. Hale, a fellow woman in town. Although Mr. Peters is pressuring her to keep a look out for something that will help convict Minnie Foster for the murder of her husband, Mrs. Hale is also putting pressure on her to stick up for her own kind, accentuating the commonalities the women share. Mrs. Hale is not the most polite of women, rifling through Minnie’s things as the men search the house for clues, yet the men are far ruder in their comb of the place, constantly generalizing women and putting them down as a whole. Ultimately, Mrs. Peters instinctively unites with Mrs. Hale upon discovering the throttled canary in order to avoid condemning a woman whose shoes she has walked in.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we are here today to discuss the murder of John Wright. On November 15, Mr. Wright was found in his bed with a rope around his neck, presumably strangled to death. His body was discovered by his wife supposedly and did not bother to notify to the local authorities. At eight o'clock in the morning, Mr. Hale went to look for Mr. Wright and found Minnie, Mr. Wright’s wife, sitting in a rocking chair inside of the house. Mr. Hale asked Minnie for her husband and she stated that John Wright was dead in the bedroom.
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.
The story opens with Mrs. Wright imprisoned for strangling her husband. A group, the mostly composed of men, travel to the Wright house in the hopes that they find incriminating evidence against Mrs. Wright. Instead, the two women of the group discover evidence of Mr. Wright’s abuse of his wife. Through the women’s unique perspective, the reader glimpses the reality of the situation and realizes that, though it seemed unreasonable at the time, Mrs. Wright had carefully calculated her actions. When asked about the Wrights, one of the women, Mrs. Hale, replies “I don’t think a place would be a cheerful for John Wright’s being in it” (“A Jury of Her Peers” 7).
Abuse is a way of controlling someone. Minnie Wright was not always a quiet women. She used to be beautiful; she used to sing. She used to be happy. Minnie Wright, in Susan Glaspell’s
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.
This description highlights the dreary and oppressive atmosphere within the household, reflecting the emotional state of Minnie Wright and her isolation. Moreover,
In Susan Glaspell's play “Trifles,” there is a difference between the men and women’s way of perceiving evidence to Mr. Wright’s murder case. The men spend most of their time searching for solid evidence upstairs where Mr. Wright's murder takes place. However, the women spend most of their time in Mrs. Wright’s kitchen. Instead of seeking tangible evidence, they inspect the condition of the items and acknowledge how they have been muddled around. Different perspectives lead to a variety of discoveries such as the women’s way of perceiving evidence.
Hale can be described as a leader which is a quality that Mrs. Peters does not possess. After discovering the dead bird, the women both decide to not inform the men of their discovery. When the men come back downstairs, the discover the empty birdcage. The county attorney asks the women if “ the bird has flown” (1119). Mrs. Hale quickly replies with “we think the—cat got it” (1119).
As a senior, I chose to take composition two at Countryside High School in my last semester. I previously finished composition one and looked forward to enhance my comprehension of shorty stories and poems in composition two. I also wanted to receive dual enrollment credit for ENC1102 for my future education. Mr. Leo, my professor, taught the class in depth information on short stories by discussing the theme and symbols of the writings however, one short story in particular stood out to me that I will profoundly remember for years to come. Five years from now, I know I will remember the short story “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell due to its meaningful symbolization and the overall irony.
“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.