When Susan Glaspell wrote this short story, in 1916, women were not only barred from jury service, they could not even vote for public officials. Why, then, do you think she chose this title for her story? What do you think it means? First, men cannot see the effort that women put into their family, and they are not able to go through what women have to go through. Man is the authority, but only women can be the peers of each other when have the understanding and empathy for their peers. Outside the authority only women at that time can step beyond and judge.
2. What significance do you see in the women's names? First, the character Minnie Wright’s name is full of irony, in which Minnie symbolizes the small personality and the ruined personal importance of a woman in the relationship with a man. Second, women in the story are usually called by their husband’s last name without their own given name spoken, which symbolizes that the dependency of women on men within a society
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By piecing together clues in the kitchen, the two women learned something significant about Mrs. Wright/Minnie Foster and who she really was as a person. Why would "just kitchen things" be silent to men, and yet provide clues to the women in the story? Because it is those trivial subjects that women have worry about every day and night for their family, and the emotional burden is slowly built up but men cannot see it. By all those half done fruits, and one of the quilt that seems especially ugly and odd, Martha Hale and Mrs. Peters the significance of the reason why Mrs. Wright could murder her husband by the those mental pressure reflected by the “just kitchen things”.
6. What did the women learn about Minnie Foster/Mrs. Wright? What did they learn about themselves, and about women-and-men in relation to one another? They have learned about Minnie Foster used to be a happy girl who enjoyed singing in choir, and all the happiness has been worn done by the tedious and pressured family
Mrs. Wright eventually deteriorated just has her environment, her rocking chair, and the canary. In “Jury of Her Peers” Minnie Wright’s situation illustrates many women of the world. In the story and in our society many woman are stereotyped in the marriage to complete all home duties and take of care the children while consumed in pleasing their husband. While doing so we lose ourselves. While reading the store I also realized how blessed I am to be symbolized as a modern
In “A Jury of Her Peers,” Minnie Wright grows up in Dickson county along with: Mr. Lewis Hale, Mrs. Martha Hale, Harry Hale, Mrs. Peters, Mr. Peters, Mr. John Wright, and Mr. George Henderson. Minnie Foster is known to others as a sweet and cheerful young girl. After marrying John Wright, Minnie Wright is not seen or spoken of throughout the town, “Time and time again it had been in her mind ‘I ought to go over and see Minnie Foster’--she still thought of her as Minnie Foster, though for twenty years she had been
As the women walk through the house, they begin to get a feel for what Mrs. Wright’s life is like. They notice things like the limited kitchen space, the broken stove, and the broken jars of fruit and begin to realize the day-to-day struggles that Mrs. Wright endured. The entire house has a solemn, depressing atmosphere. Mrs. Hale regretfully comments that, for this reason and the fact that Mr. Wright is a difficult man to be around, she never came to visit her old friend, Mrs. Wright.
To Quilt it or To Knot it? In Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” the female protagonists seek to find out the truth behind Mr. Wright’s murder in a chauvinistic atmosphere. Martha Hale, a close friend of Minnie Foster, initiates her own investigation alongside the Sheriff’s wife. Martha doubts that her Minnie Forester has husband.
During the twentieth-century stereotypical gender roles were prominent when it came to societal views. The roles of the female were simply to be a wife to her husband and mother to the children. In addition, it was also a familiar practice for women to be confined to the private space of their home. As for the role of men they were seen as the primary supporter of the family for since they were the only one allowed to have an actual occupation in the public realm of politics and business (Merret 3). They brought home the wealth earned and thus were in charge of keeping a roof over their families head. Susan Glaspell the author of a novel titled “A Jury of Her Peers” illustrates the social standards of women’s subjugation while a case involving a murder mystery is in the process of being investigated and solved. Glaspell takes the reader on a journey of not to only tell the story of a murder will out, but to also ensure that women 's subjectivity is not only to the rules of societal standards but also by those of their husbands.
In the kitchen, the dishes are dirty, bread is sitting out on the counter, and everything is in disarray. The County Attorney is disturbed, because the kitchen is not clean. The men assume that Mrs. Wright must have not been a very tidy person. In this time era, men expected women to keep the house tidy and clean, cheerful, and decorated according to the County Attorney in Trifles; he states, “It’s not cheerful. I shouldn’t say she had the homemaking instinct” (1031). Men during this era think that women should only be in the house worrying about what the inside of a house should look. In the County Attorney’s mind, the house should have been warm, clean, organized, and presenting a happy feeling. This is a demonstration of how hard a woman’s life is when she is expected to be when a man’s views think of how a woman should be in the household, for example a slave to cooking, cleaning, and sewing. As shown in the beginning of the play, the men leave the women in the kitchen to gather some of Mrs. Wright’s items she requested as if this is where these women belong. The men go upstairs and out to the farmhouse to investigate for clues for a motive to prove that Mrs. Wright is guilty of the murder of her husband. The men never investigate the kitchen for any clues since they feel there is no significance in the kitchen. The kitchen is an area for women to do cooking and cleaning, which makes them feel there is nothing important in this area. Men
One critic, Leonard Mustazza, argues that Mrs. Hale recruits Mrs. Peters “as a fellow ‘juror’ in the case, moving the sheriff’s wife away from her sympathy for her husband’s position and towards identification with the accused woman” (494). Though this is true, Mrs. Peters also comes to her own understanding. What she sees in the kitchen led her to understand Minnie’s lonely plight as the wife of an abusive farmer. The first evidence Mrs. Peters reaches understanding on her own surfaces in the following passage: “The sheriff’s wife had looked from the stove to the sink to the pail of water which had been
Character names are very important in A Jury of her Peers. The two characters, John and Minnie Wright, are the focus of the story. The name Minnie has significant symbolism. Minnie is derived from mini or minimized, which was very descriptive of her oppressed relationship with John and also the male insensitivity
Men "giving" their names to their wives expand the control they have over them and deny them personal identities. "By denying women public identities," states history Professor Kurt Leichtle, "society [tries] to protect what it [feels] should be a system of ideals for women’s behavior" (Walradth quoting Leichtle). Glaspell’s women characters have no individual identities, only those related to their husbands. Similar to the puppet that has no control over its actions and only moves at the direction of the puppeteer. Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, has no personal identity and Glaspell does not give her a first name to symbolize this fact. Mrs. Peters tries to live up to the stereotype of a proper sheriff’s wife. Defending her role, she says to Mrs. Hale, "the law is the law" (Glaspell 190). However, Glaspell gives Minnie Foster Wright a first name as well as a maiden name. Glaspell is showing that at one time Mrs. Wright was a real person with her own identity, but this was all before she married Mr. Wright. Glaspell only uses Mrs. Wright’s first name when she is referring to her in her youth and always Minnie Foster (her maiden name), never Minnie Wright. Mrs. Hale remembers Minnie Foster as a lively and appearance conscious girl that loves to sing in the choir and even compares her to a bird (Glaspell 189, 192).
Andrea Dworkin, a prominent radical feminist, tries to explain why women fail to put themselves out from where they are: “Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge.” Women are often conditioned by different factors in their life to stay in their position, especially from societal norms and expectations of them from the men in their lives. However, over time, this could be emotionally and mentally burdensome to a woman’s state of mind, leading them to nowhere. This theme of oppression is prevalent in the feminist short stories titled “A Jury of her Peers”, written by Susan Glaspell, and “Sweat”, written by Zora Neale Hurston. In these works, Glaspell and Hurston elaborate on how powerful female protagonists are able to decide for themselves, but explain their mentally-taxing processes and reasons in accomplishing such a feat. In these short stories, women are able to rise over oppression, but primarily to overcome a grief or insecurity that stems from within and after being pushed to their limits and accustomed to their roles by men.
The men talk with a rough familiarity born working together and knowing one another. The women seem less acquainted and don't ever call each other by their first names. But at the men's first disparaging remarks about Minnie's housekeeping and women 'worrying over trifles,' the women move closer together" (Smith 177). This is what set up the women to try and find the evidence that they need to protect Minnie Wright from being charged with her husband's murder.
Martha Hale is brought to the Wrights’ house along with Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife; Mr. Peters, the sheriff; Mr. Henderson, the county attorney; and Mr. Hale, Mrs. Hale’s husband. As they walk up on the scene of the crime Mrs. Hale points out Minnie Foster’s fruit preserves
To begin, both Ruth and Minnie Foster experience similar feelings in response to their new lives as farm wives. Firstly, both women feel trapped as a farm wife. To be more specific, Ruth feels that the gloominess of the house and her husband’s desire to keep it is trappinng her and Minnie feels that her husband’s controlling behaviour is trapping her. Nevertheless, both women, who were quite social, feel isolated from the rest of society. Additionally, Mrs. Hale in
Mrs. Wright is referred to when Mrs. Hale speaks of her by using her maiden name, when saying ?I wish you?d seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang.? The old rocking chair symbolizes Mrs. Wright as she has allowed herself to depreciate, just as the rocking chair has depreciated. ?The chair sagged to one side,? Mrs. Hale stated that the chair was not anything like she remembered, referring to the fact that Mrs. Wright has also changed since she
The women empower themselves through silence, particularly in the kitchen communicating and reflecting upon things around them in the limited space they were given. The men dismiss the kitchen finding nothing that is relevant to the murder case. The men keep crisscrossing through the kitchen, ignoring and not realizing they could find the vital evidence through trivial details. Even though they were having difficulty in finding clues that lead to the murder. While the women were alone looking through Minnie’s kitchen they found the most valuable evidence the “missing piece to men’s puzzle” (Holstein 283). Mrs. Hale found the dead bird strangled in the sewing box telling “Mrs. Peters-look at it! Its neck! Look at its neck!” (782). Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters recognize the bird was strangled brutally “their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension, of horror” (Glaspell 782). Both of them realized the bird was killed the same way as Mr. Wright with the rope around their neck. The strangled bird represents Minnie Foster how her freedom and joy was strangled to death. When the men came in the kitchen, the county attorney noticed the bird cage, wondering if the bird flew away, but Mrs. Hale lied and said “we think the- cat got it” ( Glaspell 782). The county attorney seek only visible evidence for murder he was wasn’t thinking critically what it may mean. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters covered the evidence keeping it between themselves for their own knowledge. They