“Jury of her Peers,” by Susan Glaspell is a story of what can happen when a person is pushed too far. The protagonist, Minnie Wright, is an isolated and hopeless woman. She’s being held in jail, awaiting trial, after a neighbor found her in her home with her husband dead upstairs. A group of people arrive at the Wright house looking for evidence for a motive. Among the group is Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters who are here with their husbands. As the men go upstairs to investigate the crime scene, they are left to also look for evidence. Mrs. Hale starts to notice strange things, like sugar container being left open, and only half of the table being wiped down. As the women continue looking, with some interruption of their husbands, they also discover …show more content…
This leads to suspicion because there is no bird to be seen in the house. While Mrs. Hale is looking for string to bring to Minnie she finds a box. When she opened the box a foul smell came from it, inside lay the dead bird with its neck broken. They realize that the bird was special to Minnie, and brought her happiness in such a dreadful place that was her farmhouse. Mrs. Peters remarks that if anyone would have hurt her childhood kitten she would have wanted to harm them back. Mrs. Hale speculates that John was the one who killed the bird, just like he killed Minnies singing. The men return to the room and Mrs. Peters quickly conceals the bird. The county general reveals that without evidence and a motive, it is likely that the jury will go easy on her. The two women make eye contact and make a silent agreement to not hand over the dead bird in the box, for it could be used to convict Minnie. The central theme of Jury of Her Peers is that there is no telling what a person could do when the have been pushed too …show more content…
Throughout the story, the author shows that Minnie lives a lonely life. She lives on a farmhouse with only her husband. They never had children and that “makes a quiet house” (511). Even with her husband there, he doesn’t make the place anymore enjoyable for Minnie. She is conflicted with who she used to be 20 years ago, a “town girl, singing in the choir” (507), but now she wore “shabby clothes” (507) and “kept to herself” (507). Her life is mostly dull. The one thing to bring her happiness is a yellow canary that sings beautifully, like she once did. Mrs. Hale exclaims that Minnie “would’ve wanted a bird” (511) after only having John for company. When the bird is killed by john, a speculation from Mrs. Hale due to the birds broken neck, Minnie couldn’t take the only source of joy being taken away from
In A Jury of Peers by Susan Glaspell, the story revolves around the sudden death of John Wright. There are five characters that participate in the investigation of this tragedy. Their job is to find a clue to the motive that will link Mrs. Wright, the primary suspect, to the murder. Ironically, the ladies, whose duties did not include solving the mystery, were the ones who found the clue to the motive. Even more ironic, Mrs. Hale, whose presence is solely in favor of keeping the sheriff s wife company, could be contributed the most to her secret discovery. In this short story, Mrs. Hale s character plays a significant role to Mrs. Wright s nemesis in that she has slight feelings of accountability and also her discovery of the clue to the motive.
Twentieth century society places few stereotypical roles on men and women. The men are not the sole breadwinners, as they once were, and the women are no longer the sole homemakers. The roles are often reversed, or, in the case of both parents working, the old roles are totally inconsequential. Many works of literature deal with gendered roles and their effect on society as a whole or on an individual as a person. "A Jury Of Her Peers" and Trifles, both written by Susan Glaspell, are works of literature that deal with socially gendered roles during the early nineteenth century. The two works are almost exactly alike in that the dialogue from "A Jury Of Her Peers" becomes the actor's lines in Trifles. The gendered roles in the early 1900s place the woman in the kitchen, serving meals, baking bread, and canning fruits and jellies. She was also expected to be a mother to her children and a caretaker to her husband. The man, on the other hand, was expected to take care of his family, providing the home and the food that the wife would prepare. Often when gender plays too much a part in a household, communication is lost. The husband can not see a person when he looks at his wife. This was the case in "A Jury Of Her Peers" and Trifles. The men totally ignored their wives' thoughts and roles, and, therefore, they missed the entire point of the real motive behind Mr. Wright's murder. The social gap between men and women in the early 1800s provided the basis for Glaspell's story, "A Jury Of her Peers" and her play, Trifles.
The Wrights home was a poor, lonely type of home. The trees that surround the house grew in a sad state. The road that led up to the farm was an unoccupied path. Minnie Wright is the woman who lives on these lonely grounds. She is friendless and mostly keeps to herself. There is no one for her to talk to, her husband died recently, thus, she lives out her life as an outcast. In hindsight, Mrs. Hale, a woman who knows Mrs. Wright, explains to her friend, “'But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs. Peters I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here I wish– I had.’ I [too] wish I had come over to see Minnie sometimes.’” Since no one takes the time out of their busy schedules to visit Mrs. Wright, Minnie feels unwanted.
Susan Glaspell Trifles Susan Glaspell wrote many literary pieces in the early 1900s. Two, in particular, are very similar in theme, which is the play Trifles and the short story “A Jury of Her Peers”. The Trifles was written in 1920 and “A Jury of Her Peers” was written in 1921, a short story, adapted from the play. Susan Glaspell was born in Davenport, IA July 1, 1876 as a middle child and the only daughter. In college, she wrote for her school paper, The Drake, and after Glaspell graduated, she started working for the Des Moines News.
Men always have the tendency to judge too quickly. In “A Jury of Her Peers”, by Susan Glaspell, Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Peters, and Minnie Foster and Mr. Henderson are attempting to look for the motive of Minnie killing her husband. The story starts by Mr. Peters informing the group, except for Minnie, while she waits in jail, that when he stopped by the day before to give Mr. Wright a telephone because the couple lived really removed from the rest of the town, he asked Minnie where Mr. Wright was and she calmly answered that he had been hung the night before. Then, the men head upstairs to look at the crime scene, while the women sit around the kitchen to talk. Accidentally, the women figure out the motive of the murder by talking about kitchen supplies, “trifles” as the men call it. They decided not to inform the men to keep Minnie from being convicted because her husband was equally guilty as her. In the short story, “A Jury of Her Peers”, Glaspell employs strong details and details devices to argue that the purpose of the story is how Glaspell portrays men, that a person must not be judged based on off of the external appearance and that the little details in life always are important.
The bird and the cage are the two most important symbol in this play because it symbolizes the oppression of Minnie Foster, and it can also mean the death of her husband (Mr. Wright). Minnie Foster is sometimes compared to the bird by Mrs. Hale saying that she was real sweet, pretty, and that she like to sing just like the bird, but then Mrs. Hale asks: “How she did change?”(1074). The bird symbolizes Minnie Foster before she got married, but everything changed about her after she got married with Mr. Wright. The reader can clearly see how abusive Mr. Wright was to Minnie Wright to completely change the way she is. For example, one way that Mr. Wright kept Minnie Foster oppressed is by preventing her from singing. As the reader knows Minnie really liked to sing, but Mr. Wright hated a “thing” that can sing ,as a result, he didn’t let Minnie to sing anymore.
Minnie Wright, John’s wife, is the main suspect. This time, Sheriff Peters asked to bring his wife Mrs. Peters, the county attorney George Henderson, and his neighbors Martha and Lewis Hale to the crime scene. He intended for Lewis Hale, Mr. Henderson and him to solve the case. While Lewis Hale tells the group the details of how John Wright was found, Mrs. Peters and Martha Hale begin looking around the house to judge the state of the crime scene. Before even looking for evidence, Lewis Hale says “Oh, well, women are used to worrying over trifles” (160) to the dismay of Martha Hale and Mrs. Peters. Martha Hale notices that the Wrights’ house was unkempt and sad-looking, which was strange because Minnie Wright used to be a cheerful and meticulous homemaker. Again, Lewis Hale dismisses this as an inconsequential detail, stating that Minnie was just not a good homemaker, even though his wife Martha already told Mr. Henderson that “farmers’ wives have their hands full” (160). A few moments later, the men explore the house, but not before Mr. Hale ironically questions “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” (161). The women began to
Minnie had nothing but her canary to keep her company since John was no source of companionship. John was so against noise, that the couple would not “ ‘...to have had any children around. No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird--a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too’ “ (Glaspell 245-246). John killed her only companion that fulfilled that social interaction need, and when he took away that little piece of interaction away, Minnie soon lost her mind. With this prolonged isolation, it can cause “changes in the brain’s white matter have been seen before in psychiatric disorders, and demyelinating disorders like multiple sclerosis have also had association with depression” (“Prolonged Loneliness”). John killed off Minnie’s only real source of socialization, leading her to have this prolonged confinement which, like said above, caused Minnie to form a psychiatric disorder making her go crazy. These events start to fall into a domino like theory, John Wright’s actions created this isolated lifestyle for Minnie, leading to her change in personality and emotions,
Mrs. Hale describes Minnie as formerly singing “real pretty herself” (Glaspell p666). The connection between Minnie and the canary is established here, and in the bird’s physical death parallels Minnie’s emotional death (Russell). Mrs. Hale’s keen wit and patience contributes to her embodiment of The Fate sister named Clotho the Spinner, which even more evident in her correcting of Minnie Wright’s improper stitching (Russell). Mrs. Peters begins the process of investigation deeply devoted to keeping the law. She doesn 't want any disruption in the house saying, “I don 't think we ought to touch things” (Glaspell p 666) when Mrs. Hale began searching for clues. Upon finding the dead canary, Mrs. Peters view on the situation changes drastically, and she decides with Mrs. Hale to hide the tiny dead bird from the men. They both figure that if the dead canary was discovered, Mrs. Wright would be thought to be a mad woman, though it was likely Mr. Wright who killed it. Mrs. Peters sympathizes with Minnie remembering back to an old memory of her childhood, where a menacing boy killed her small kitten with a hatchet (Russell). Mrs. Peters then realizes that the justice to be served is to conceal evidence and find the answers for themselves. These
Hale and Mrs. Peters reflect on their past experiences with Mrs. Wright, saying she wasn’t a very cheerful person. Mrs. Wright’s house was very gloomy and lonely. The ladies believed her unhappiness with her marriage was due to not having any children to fill her home. Also, the bird symbolized joy in Minnie’s world. The ladies believed that the bird lightened up not only her home, but her spirits. “Mrs. Hale says, I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up in the choir and sang. [A look around the room.] Oh, I wish I'd come over here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to punish that?” (976.) Mrs. Hale feels guilty for not visiting Minnie as much as she should have, and wondering if it would have changed things. Mrs. Hale knew women are better joining forces, than being left to fend for
Peters finds the bird cage, it is empty. This bird cage never actually had a bird in it. In paragraph 218, Mrs. Hale finds the canary has croaked: “‘There’s something wrapped up in this piece of silk,’ faltered Mrs. Hale. ‘This isn’t her scissors,’ said Mrs. Peters, in a shrinking voice. Her hand not steady, Mrs. Hale raised the piece of silk. ‘Oh, Mrs. Peters!’ she cried. ‘It’s—’ Mrs. Peters bent closer. ‘It’s the bird,’ she whispered. ‘But, Mrs. Peters!’ cried Mrs. Hale. ´Look at it! Its neck—look at its neck! It’s all—other side to.’”(Glaspell). Sadly, the bird was strangled, and I think that Mr. Wright did it. Mrs. Wright clearly loved her feathered friend. After it was killed, she wrapped it in a square of silk. Back then, silk was very expensive even for a little piece like that. Mrs. Hale explains how Millie loved to sing, and this bird must remind her of when she was happy. Mr. John Wright was not very happy with this bird. If he could stop his wife from singing and being happy, he could surely stop a little bird. So Wright goes into the room and snaps its neck, destroying his wife’s most prized
This symbol is where the desolation that Mrs.Wright felt. The dead canary is the representation of the companionship and how weak Mrs. Wright acted on the scene when Mr. Peters showed up. According to Elke Brown, Mrs. Wright thought that “Wright was a harsh man, who like to have his quiet and disapproved of conversation and singing” causing him to break the bird 's nest. Not only that but he killed his owns wife spirit, turning a happy, Minnie Foster into a lonely, desperate Minnie Wright. It is a reality that Mrs. Wright was pushed away to be in isolation. The second symbol in the play was Mrs. Wright 's quilting. Mrs. Hale realized that the quilt was uneven, and that stitches started well and then ended all wrong. It was “the first clue about Minnie 's real state of mind lies in the fact that parts of the quilt have been sewn together haphazardly, which showed Minnie’s state of mind”, according to Mr. Brown. Her incompleteness leads to quilting. This technique of self is to distress, and that was the way Minnie felt. At the beginning of time, Minnie and her husband had everything flowing until it went down the drain and felt abandoned by Mr. Wright. When this happen, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters felt the same way as Minnie. They talk about how it was not bad at all for Minnie to act like she did and left everything with no anger as the sheriff would have thought. Minnie 's friends also realize that her fruit province broke
Mr. Hale describes Mrs. Foster as being “queer” or strange. It is know that people in highly stressful situations can behave in a manner that is considered inappropriate such as laughing at a funeral and perhaps Minnie Foster is in such a situation that mental she is struggling to believe what has happened. She may also be in a state of shock causing peculiar behavior and a lack of judgement. Furthermore, the possible motive that Minnie Foster killed her husband over him killing her bird is weak. Mrs. Hale remembers Mrs. Foster as being a normal girl who people adored and yet how could such a normal person commit murder over the death of a bird. Perhaps the bird had died and she simply had not had time to bury the bird. Minnie Foster’s behavior suggest she was in shock over the death of her husband causing her to act strange not because she killed her husband and further the weakness of the suggested motive that she killed Mr. Foster because he killed her bird jumps to a conclusion without clear
Mrs. Wright, however, justified killing her husband due to Mr. Wright trapping her inside the house and how Mrs. Wright job is only to be domestic wife. When Mrs. Hale (farmer’s wife) and Mrs. Peters (sheriff’s wife) discovered a dead bird with her neck bruised all over, they start to put the pieces to the puzzle together and ...
The canary and the birdcage are symbolic to Mrs. Wright?s life in the way that the bird represents her, and the cage represents her life and the way she was made to live. Mrs. Hale compares the canary that she and Mrs. Peters discover to Mrs. Wright, when Mrs. Hale refers to Mrs. Wright as ?kind of like a bird herself?real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and?fluttery.? Minnie Foster was a distinctly different woman than Minnie Foster ...