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What Significance Do You See In The Women's Names?

Decent Essays

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

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