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Women In Susan Glaspell's A Jury Of Her Peers

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While Susan Glaspell’s 1917, “A Jury of her Peers” and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2014, “We Should All be Feminists” were written almost a century apart, both titles explore the idea that women’s role in society is inherently less important than men’s. Due to the nature of their sex, women’s voices are often trivialized, they have become stuck in roles molded just for them, and are brought up to think of marriage as an aspiration—rather than a choice. In the unjustly unbalanced scales of gender equality, men have been awarded an obvious advantage. Therefore, they can freely express their ideas, with little fear of reproach, while women’s voices are often unheard, overlooked, or trivialized. This is the case in “A Jury of Her Peers”, where Mr. Hale is depicted as a man who likes to run his mouth and spice up the truth by “saying unnecessary things that… would make trouble” (Glaspbell). An urge that was barely subsided by the fact that his words were being recorded as testimony, “Hale did speak guardedly, as if the pencil had affected him too “(Glaspbell). However, his statement isn’t questioned, and it actually serves a narrative device. Mrs. Hale, on the other hand, is portrayed …show more content…

The plot in “A Jury of Her Peers” revolves around an unhappy marriage, and the impact it had on the woman. Glaspell reveals that Foster’s marriage to John Wright killed her spirit. Thusly, she is presented as two separate entities: Minnie Foster (the true Self) and Mrs. Wright (the shadow):
“’I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster," was the answer, "when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons, and stood up there in the choir and sang.’
The picture of that girl, the fact that she had lived neighbour to that girl for twenty years, and had let her die for lack of life, was suddenly more than she could bear”

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. In Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things To Me, she identifies the struggle that takes place in an work environment, bedroom, classroom and newspapers where women are constantly underrepresented and silenced. Because of this symbolic violence, women that grew up to have a voice are binded to “the rights of the voiceless”(Solnit 25). Woolf and Solnit would agree with one another to the extent that men are seen to be higher in ranking while women see themselves to have “self-limitation” that only “exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence” (Solnit 27).

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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.

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Minnie Wright a character in Susan Glaspell’s short story, “A Jury of Her Peers”. In which the storyline is the focus of a crime scene that takes place in the home of Minnie Wright. The short story’s leading woman is Minnie Wright Formerly Minnie Foster who has said to be once vibrant and lively however now described as quite timid. Although readers will only see Minnie’s character through the words and expressions of her peers and neighbors, were painted a visual of her character that gives the reader details into her life and who she is. One of the woman who introduces Minnie to reader’s through her eyes is the wife of the town’s sheriff, Mrs. Peters, and the other a woman from her neighborhood Mrs. Hales.

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Power to the Women in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” is an unsolved investigation that lead the readers to construe the clues for the death of Mr. Wright. His wife, Mrs. Minnie Wright, is the only suspect in the play and is therefore taken into custody due to the disbelief of her not waking up when Mr. Wright was gruesomely tortured. An exploration of the play reveals the women’s and men’s actions during the investigation. Along the lines of the play, the women are ridiculed and stereotyped while gathering the belongings of Minnie.

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For many years, the suffrage of women was debated, as equality seemed far from the minds of men. Women were trained to believe their place was in the home caring for the children, cooking, cleaning and guiding. In Rev. John Todd D.D.’s, paper , Women’s Rights, the only area Dr. Todd allows a woman to have rights is within marriage, and only in the caring of the home and children along with helping to control the character of her husband. This concept alone is flawed as Gail Hamilton points out in her paper, Women’s Wrongs, which debates Dr. Todd’s writings. Hamilton finds his many errors in his thought process of separate spheres.

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Prior to today, the mere thought of a woman being prosecuted for the betrayal of her feminine nature in a court of law was impractical- unheard of. Now? Not so much. Susan Glaspell the author of the story “a jury of her peers” recites an early Nineteenth Century based trial of a woman, by the name of Minnie Wright who is convicted for the murder of her husband John Wright. In the utmost peculiar setting, Martha Hale, a farmer’s wife with a keen eye; is left in a bundle of nerves when faced with a guilty conscience.

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“A Jury of Her Peers” is a valuable resource for anyone curious to what life was like for women in the twentieth century for which it demonstrates women struggling to publish and define

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“All men are created equal” is what the founding fathers said when they created the US Constitution, but what if men are not treated equally? Unfortunately, during the 1800s-1900s, men did not treat women as equals. Men denied women basic rights such as the right to vote; consequently, these women began to protest to let their voices be heard. In the speeches Is it a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote written by Susan B. Anthony and Freedom of Death written by Emmeline Pankhurst, both women provide their account of how they as women have been mistreated and why women should be able to vote. Each speech effectively supports their claim that women should have the right to vote through rhetorical devices such as ethos and pathos.

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In some works of literature, a character who appears briefly, or does not appear at all, is a significant factor that contributes to the overall plot development. Whether the character is a figure of the past or simply a bystander to the situation, their actions and observations can play a clear role in progression of the story. In Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers”, the character Minnie Foster is not actually present, but her previous actions and decisions present an external conflict that is displayed throughout the story. Minnie Foster is a woman who is under investigation for the murder of her husband, Mr. Wright. Two men and their wives travel to the scene of the crime to further examine the setting of the scene.

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Plato’s Allegory of the Cave – Personal Response There was a time, back in the days where at a point I had friends. The friends you could talk too, the friends you cried to when something went wrong. The friends you could call “best friends “, but threw out time everything changed. What I was told threw out my childhood years, were lies.

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Throughout history up until her time women are property of someone else or treated like incomplete people and the impacts of this kind of treatment ripple through time and do not leave just because women have their own college. The long hammered in the idea that women are less than will not go away until women are able to make their own history and have their own voices heard for generations. Woof’s exploration of this idea is vital for other women finding their own voices. Every moment a woman puts her ideas out into the world with her name on it and her ideas boldly thrust through, the anthology and history of

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