preview

Insanity In Susan Glaspell's 'A Jury Of Her Peers'

Good Essays

There have always been those that people consider mad. Whether they act a certain way, or have mannerisms that are simply strange, people check them off as odd. The public never thinks to ask the big question. What made them this way? Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Susan Glaspell’s stories all include characters who, although a bit mad, have understandable reasons for being that way. In Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” our main character Mrs. Mallard is overjoyed at the death of her husband, an act that would be considered by many to be awful. In Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” we see the slow descent into madness of the wife of a man named John. In Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” we witness two characters sympathizing with Mrs.Wright who had recently killed her husband.. Ms. Mallard,John’s wife, and Mrs. Wright all have a distinct action that makes them appear mad, but they all …show more content…

Mallard, they get the idea that she is a small, frail woman who would do nothing more than rest for most of the day. Upon receiving news that her husband has died, it would be expected that she may cry or sob. However, after a brief moment of mourning, she begins to feel excited about her husband’s death. “Free! Body and soul free!”( ). At first, someone may be startled by this response, as it appears that she has no reason to be acting this way, but if you look between the lines, you realize why. Ms. Mallard was a woman who felt trapped in her marriage. She craved freedom and was never to reach it until the death of her husband. When she first feels it, she likens it to something vial or sinister, but soon after she compares it to an elixir of eternal life. While this reaction appears to be extreme, it is important to realize that divorce was not an accepted practice at the time of this story. This means that she was essentially stuck in her marriage until one of them died, which is why she was so untroubled by the demise of her

Get Access