Iris Chase Griffen

The thesis statement above attempts to examine the role that Elizabeth Bennet plays in the novel as she goes against the women’s idealistic views. This article will help justify my thesis statement in how Greenfield expresses the oppression that women go through and how they lack to see the discrimination they are faced with daily.

The Blind Assassin is a story about reflecting on the past. Iris Chase-Griffen, an elderly widow, lives in a modest home in southern Canada. As she lives out the final days of her life at her house, Iris handwrites a personal memoir depicting the haunting events of her past as the wife of a distinguished politician and businessman in the early 1900s. Iris was pressured by her father to marry the wealthy Richard Griffen after the Great Depression devastated her family’s business. Soon after Iris weds, her father dies, leaving Iris and her younger sister Laura to the luxurious tyranny of life with Richard. Iris engages in an affair with Alex Thomas, a unionist on the run and friend of the sisters, to escape from what became a restrictive, abusive marriage to Richard, but Richard sends Laura off to a mental institution after she rebels against him, and Alex dies in World War II. After the war ends Iris reveals her affair and Alex’s death to Laura, who apparently had feelings for him as well, prompting Laura to commit suicide. Later, Iris learns that Richard had been raping Laura during most of her marriage, which Laura silently endured to keep Richard from turning Alex in like he threatened. Ever since, Iris has kept the truth about her marriage and her culpability in her sister’s death secret. Iris reveals in her narrative the truth that had been hidden from the public for so long, struggling with her repressed guilt and painful memories to find some sort of reconciliation.

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.

In Louise Erdrich’s novel, The Round House the main character’s father explains his understanding of “ideal justice as opposed to the best-we-can-do kinds of

Often in novels, characters are faced with justice of some sort. The same can be said for the characters of Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible. Overall, the best example of this complex character can be seen in the twin Price daughter, Leah. She is the character that stands out when it comes to the injustice that occurs in the Congo. After Ruth May dies, the Price women all journey to leave the Congo.

“A Jury of Her Peers” is a short story written by Susan Glaspell in 1917 illustrates early feminist literature. The two female characters, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, is able to solve the mystery of who the murderer of John Wright while their male counterparts could not. This short story had been adapted from Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles written the previous year. The play consists of the same characters and plotline as the story. In both works, Glaspell depicts how the men, Sheriff Peters and Mr. Hale, disregard the most important area in the house, the kitchen, when it comes to their investigation. In the end, the women are the ones who find clues that lead to the conclusion of Minnie Wright, John Wright’s wife, is the one who murdered him. Both of Glaspell’s female characters illustrate the ability to step into a male dominated profession by taking on the role of detective. According to Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, written by Lois Tyson, a reader-response critique “focuses on readers’ response to literary texts” and it’s a diverse area (169). Through a reader-response criticism from a feminist lens, we are able to analyze how “A Jury of Her Peers” and Trifles depict how a patriarchal society oppresses women in the early twentieth century, gender stereotypes confined both men and women and the emergence of the New Woman is illustrated.

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?

Susan Glaspell's short story, A Jury of Her Peers, was written long before the modern women's movement began, yet her story reveals, through Glaspell's use of symbolism, the role that women are expected to play in society. Glaspell illustrates how this highly stereotypical role can create oppression for women and also bring harm to men as well.

In a feeling akin to one they may have experienced, the authors display their main characters as being outsiders from society. Janie arrived in her hometown, Eatonville, in isolation due to her marriage to Jody. He made it so, “She but get close to most of them in spirit,” as a form of control over her life (Hurston 46). Janie’s solitude causes her to envy those around her, even with their lower economic status for their ability to interact with the community. However, Janie’s isolation is not complete as her beauty gives her a higher standing among her peers and causes men to court her after her husband’s death.

In “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, both authors introduce female protagonists that are confined by men’s authority. By displaying the protagonist's transformation, Glaspell and Faulkner highlight the repercussions of gender roles, to show that when women are trapped, they will go to great lengths to retaliate against their oppressors.

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.

Finally, the reader is introduced to the character around whom the story is centered, the accursed murderess, Mrs. Wright. She is depicted to be a person of great life and vitality in her younger years, yet her life as Mrs. Wright is portrayed as one of grim sameness, maintaining a humorless daily grind, devoid of life as one regards it in a normal social sense. Although it is clear to the reader that Mrs. Wright is indeed the culprit, she is portrayed sympathetically because of that very lack of normalcy in her daily routine. Where she was once a girl of fun and laughter, it is clear that over the years she has been forced into a reclusive shell by a marriage to a man who has been singularly oppressive. It is equally clear that she finally was brought to her personal breaking point, dealing with her situation in a manner that was at once final and yet inconclusive, depending on the outcome of the legal investigation. It is notable that regardless of the outcome, Mrs. Wright had finally realized a state of peace within herself, a state which had been denied her for the duration of her relationship with the deceased.

Margaret Atwood uses the character Iris Chase Griffen to brighten the whole meaning of the work. Iris is in a conflict between her responsibilities to her family, and her personal desires. Iris tells the story of her life and that of her sister, but also describes the hurt and uneasiness of her past.

To begin, the naïvety and distorted views of reality that Briony Tallis possess reveals her inability to understand the meaning of justice. Briony, who is only thirteen at the time, “views the adult world from a child’s perspective, seeing adult acts through the lense of melodrama” (“Atonement” 7). As result, in reading Robbie’s letter she immediately “[casts] herself as her sister’s protector” (McEwan 115), and thus imagines that Robbie is attacking Cecilia in the library. This can be seen in her perception that Cecilia’s forearm “was raised

In today’s advanced societies, many laws require men and women to be treated equally. However, in many aspects of life they are still in a subordinated position. Women often do not have equal wages as the men in the same areas; they are still referred to as the “more vulnerable” sex and are highly influenced by men. Choosing my Extended Essay topic I wanted to investigate novels that depict stories in which we can see how exposed women are to the will of men surrounding them. I believe that as being woman I can learn from the way these characters overcome their limitations and become independent, fully liberated from their barriers. When I first saw the movie “Precious” (based on Sapphire’s “Push”) I was shocked at how unprotected the