A Jury Of Her Peers By Susan Glaspell Analysis

I have always felt that a good piece of writing causes the reader to think about and analyze a given set of circumstances so that he expands his worldly understandings. Such writing is stimulating and often includes an element of controversy. The short story “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell is one example of this provocation in which the writer conveys her views on sexual injustice. In a way that is conceptually intriguing, Glaspell expresses her ideas about the misunderstandings between men and women during the early twentieth century. While personally disagreeing with the interpretive outcome of the story as well as the message that it is intended to present, I must admit that it did provide me with insight into the mind

Kate Chopin's “The Story of an Hour” and Gail Godwin’s “A Sorrowful Woman” are similar pieces of literary work. Both stories offer a revealing glimpse of extremely unhappy marriages due to being forced into stereotypical roles. Both stories portray women, who are trapped in their marriages and trapped in their socially expected matriarchal characters. They are identified by their role as a wife and mother.

Women in history stood best known for a less ascendant sex in the mid-nineteen centuries. Since times have gone by women had fought for their equal rights and freedom. There had been many stereotypes, where the women were considered as a slave to the men’s because the women’s position was to be the homemakers and a mother to their children, while the men’s are out socializing with others. If they were not happy with the marriage, they cannot just walk out or complain because a women role is to endure all these pains without a word coming out of their mouths. Two out of the ordinary short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Story of An Hour,” mostly focused on a women’s dilemma that they faced near the 19th century. The two main characters in the short stories show some resemblances in some ways, but both characters portrayed them in different ways of how they dealt their sorrows in their marriages.

In the early 19th century, women were oppressed, and marriage was a social status, not a choice. Mrs. Mallard was a wife during 19th Century and her home was where she would spend most of her days. She also suffers from a heart condition. She learns of the tragic news on the first floor of her two story home. Her sister Josephine was the one to tell her “ in broken sentences, veiled hints that revealed in half concealing.”(287) The news was revealed as delicate as possible, due to Mrs. Mallard's heart condition. Mrs. Mallard heard the news, she wept, a sense of grief comes upon her. Once she removed herself from her sister Josephine's arms, she went off to her room. It reads, “ When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. No one to follow her”(287). During this time, women were looked down upon if they were not married. Most women were given away by their

In “The Story of an Hour” we see Mrs. Louise Mallard receives news of the death of her husband. The

In Susan Glaspell’s, “A Jury of her Peers”, it is the women who take center stage and captivate the reader’s emotions. Throughout the feministic short story, which was written in 1917, several repeating patterns and symbols help the audience to gain a deeper understanding of the difficulty of prairie life for women and of the bond that women share. The incredible cunning the women in the story demonstrate provides insight into the innate independence that women had even during days of deep sexual discrimination. In “A Jury of her Peers”, the hardships women of the early twentieth century must endure and the sisterhood that they can still manage to maintain are manifested as a mysterious, small-town murder unfolds.

     Mr. Hale continues, “’I didn’t see or hear anything. I knocked at the door. And still it was quiet inside. […] I opened the door […] and there, in that rocker’ pointing to it ‘sat Mrs. Wright’” (190). Mr. Hale says that Mrs. Wright looked “’queer’” (190) — like she didn’t know what she was doing. Mr. Hale says he told Mrs. Wright, “’I want to see John’” (191), and Mrs. Wright just laughed. Mr. Hale goes on, “’so I said a little sharp, ‘Can I see John?’” (191). Back then, men would run out of patience very quickly with a woman if the woman did not bow down to every command or act quickly enough. Mr. Hale says that after Mrs. Wright told him Mr. Wright was dead “of a rope around his neck,” Mr. Hale went out and called Harry in case help was needed upstairs. Mr. Hale tells the county attorney that they did indeed find Mr. Wright upstairs with a rope around his neck, and Harry advised him not to touch anything.

The short stories, “The Story of An Hour”, by Kate Chopin and “The Jury of Her Peers”, by Susan Glaspell compare two married women who live under the shadow of their husbands. Both of these stories were written in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries during the time when women were treated unequally. Women had limited rights. For example, they could not vote, voice their opinion or work outside the home. Glaspell and Chopin were considered feminist writers who focus their writing on the struggle of women during the time when the Women’s Suffrage Movement was beginning; these short stories reflect women’s struggles under the control of men. Married women were responsible for taking care of the household, children and wifely duties while the husbands were responsible for consistently managing the title of “the breadwinner.” Married women were expected to be discreet and obedient to their husbands, which meant that the wives could not express their opinions because of society’s expectations of women. In the short stories, “The Story of An Hour”, by Kate Chopin and “The Jury of Her Peers”, by Susan Glaspell, Mrs. Mallard and Mrs. Wright share a prominent similarity concerning the loss of their individual identity during marriage and realize that the death of their husbands allow them to regain their self-identity.-

From beginning to end, Susan Glaspell’s 1917 short story “A Jury of Her Peers,” has several repetitive patterns and symbols that help the reader gain a profound understanding of how hard life is for women at the turn-of-the-century, as well as the bonds women share. In the story two women go with their husbands and county attorney to a remote house where Mr. Wright has been killed in his bed with a rope and he suspect is Minnie, his wife. Early in the story, Mrs. Hale sympathizes with Minnie and objects to the way the male investigators are “snoopin’ round and criticizin’ ” her kitchen. In contrast, Mrs. Peters, the Sheriffs wife, shows respect for the law, saying that the men are doing “no more than their duty”. However, by the end of the story Mrs. Peters unites with Mrs. Hale in a conspiracy of silence and concealing evidence. What causes this dramatic transformation?

The author makes a point of assuring the reader that Mr. Mallard was a kind man, but Louise’s response to his death indicates a loveless marriage and one that possibly

They was confined with living through a man, a woman was never seen as an equal even in an loving relationship. Woman in this time was basically living there lives through their significant others, they wasn’t expected to live life how they wanted just to live life how their men wanted and would end up loosing their selves in the process. The confinement in the story "the Story of an Hour" portrays that Mrs. Mallard was controlled by this marriage. Even though Mr. Mallard Treated her fairly, and she loved him occasionally, she still wanted and out. She wanted to escape this marriage because she felt like she was being controlled by it and she wanted to be herself . She believed that marriages robes people of independence, she also believed that all women and men oppress one another even if they do it out of the goodness of their heart. Everyone needs a break at some point which is why she was so over joyed that she thought that her husband had died. She felt like she was in control again of her life. Usually persons would just say why not get a divorce, but in that time back in the day divorce wasn’t anything easy. Society back then is also a confinement because it didn’t like change. As we can see that Mrs. Mallard is free different in her conformist society, which is a great taboo. In the story Mrs. Mallard never given a first name throughout the story, Mr. Mallard is given a

“The Story of an Hour” follows an eventful hour of a particular day in the life of Louise Mallard during the late 19th century. Over the span of an hour, Mrs. Mallard receives the news that her husband had died in a terrible railroad accident and she goes through the typical mourning stage that most people do when they find out a love one is lost. But within a few minutes of being alone Mrs. Mallard starts repeating, “Free! Body and soul free!” From this moment she begins to envision a life on her own where she does not have to live for anyone, especially not a husband, she can do what she wants and follow her dreams. She’s more confident and ecstatic about her new life and finally goes to be with her sister again but in doing that, Brently Mallard, her husband comes home and indirectly kills her.

In criminal cases, the prosecutors desire to retrieve justice for the victim and the victim's family. However, many times the interrogators seek to answer why someone could take the life of another person. The families of the victims ponder the same question. Perhaps an eighty-five year old woman was murdered in her home. She has no money or valuables, and she never leaves her house. Therein, the question lies: why would someone want to kill an elderly woman? Sometimes the rationale provides more closure to the victim's family than does the prosecution. Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers" narrates the story about a man who has been killed, and the prime suspect is his wife. Glaspell's short story examines the distinction between legal justice and social justice in correlation with opposite genders.

In ‘The story of an hour’, it is set in a house in the 1890s, a time when women had little to no rights. Louise was the typical housewife married to the working man. She was to keep the house in order and have dinner ready when the man got home. This confinement and role Louise had to play gives her “heart trouble”. At first when Mr. Mallard is reported dead, Louise weeps suddenly then goes to her room. She spends the next several minutes looking at how free she is now that her husband is gone. The setting of the story affects the context greatly. If it had taken place in the 21st century, Louise might not

In The Story of an Hour Mrs. Mallards husband is supposed to come home from a trip across country by train. Mrs. Mallard receives word that her husband’s train had crashed and that he was killed. Mrs. Mallard’s sister and her husband’s brother try to comfort her. Mrs. Mallard runs up the stairs to her room and locks herself in the room. Mrs. Mallard sits at the window and contemplates how she feels about the death of her husband. At first she feels that