In “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell, the sheriff, Mr. Peters, is struggling to find a motive for Mr. Wright’s murder case due to his sexist views. However, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, are able to find significant clues that lead to Mrs. Wright’s motive because they relate to her living conditions. Although Mrs. Wright claims to have been asleep during her husband’s murder, the women conclude she strangled her husband, Mr. Wright, as evidenced by the slaughtered canary, the broken bird cage, and the errant quilt patch. The slaughtered canary wrapped in silk is a significant clue, which leads to Mrs. Wright’s motive. When the women unwrap the bird, Mrs. Peters notices that “somebody wrung its neck.” It does not make sense for Mrs. Wright to kill her own bird because it was the only thing that brought light into her life.
Introduction. A Jury by Her Peers authored by Susan Glaspell narrates the investigative events that occur after the death of John Wright in his house. As neighbors and the Dickson County administration, themes of sisterhood and gender roles appear through the actions and hidden motives of the characters. The book, A Jury by Her Peers, expounds on the silent suffering of women and being perceived as unintelligent while providing justifications for covering up of John Wrights death. Three women, Minnie Wright, Martha Hale, and Mrs. Peters express sisterhood by hiding of incriminating evidence such as the dead bird while the men fail to prove of her complicity.
After she married John, she changed because of her loneliness. Then, Glaspell also depicted the theme in the play using symbols. The symbols are playing an important role to pose problems for the readers or audience to interpret what Glaspell tries to imply (Knowles and Moon, 2006). For instance, the bird cage is signifying that Minnie had very limited space to do her role as a human in nature. She was so isolated from the mainstream surroundings that she did not even belong to Ladies Aid, a woman organization at that time.
Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters chose to hide the evidence because they see part of themselves in Mrs. Wright and do not want to condemn her. This leads to the women’s motivation to hide the evidence. Mrs. Wright has been lonely and unhappy for many years going through emotional abuse, and the killing of her bird: the one living thing that cared for her may prove
Glaspell’s work, “Jury of Her Peers,” is a third person short story in which madness acts as a secluded theme. In this story, Minnie Wright, the protagonist who is never present, murders her husband. Her drastic
When the fellow housewives probing around the house of John and Minnie Wright they saw the small things that showed that she was distressed, for example when they saw that the quilt that she had been working on at the time was poorly knotted they took the time to correct the quilting, and when they saw that Minnie’s bird was wrapped in silk and held in a beautiful embellished box they realized why she killed her husband. Although Mrs.Peters is the wife to the sherrif she hides what she finds in the Wright’s home because she can relate to what Minnie was going through. So although when Minnie went to court she presumably sat in front of a jury filled with men she had justice through other women understanding her troubles when it counted. Throughout the story the main idea is to find what was the motive of Minnie Wright to kill her husband, although this story will not just come out and blatantly state the reason, it shows the audience through showing the gender roles of the time and what they meant to the women. The reader comes to realize that Minnie murdered her husband due to something as insignificant and petulant as a small bird -well that is how the men saw the situation.
A Jury of Her Peers: Character Analysis It wasn’t until 1942 that women got the right to act in a jury in the United States. 25 years earlier, in 1917, Susan Glaspell wrote “A Jury of Her Peers”, s short story based on a real life case in which a woman was suspected of murdering her husband. However, back when that case took place, only men served on juries. So they judged her as any man would at that time; frail, dainty, and ignorant. Martha Hale is not one such woman.
However, Mary said Nancy was staying with her and they were good friends, also Mary was in Grace’s body. It is possible that Nancy were staying together with Mary in Grace’s body, so Grace made a quilt that represent the three of the are together. The pattern of that quilt is a tree with snake borders. Compare to the life in prison, although Grace was not rich, her life out of prison was still much better. However, the paradise was surrounded by snakes, which are the symbol of Satan and always attract people to the hell, represents Grace was lured by Mary Whitney or just her desire to kill Nancy and Mr.
It symbolize the evidence. The evidence can prove that Mrs. Wright kill her husband. The reason of that is she does not love and hate her husband. In this story, her friend understand her feeling as a women as they help Mrs. Wright hiding the evidence. Mrs. Peters throws back quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing but it is too big.
Wright’s husband has been found dead, strangled to death in the farmhouse with a rope. Mrs. Wright instantly becomes a suspect in the murder of her husband. Sheriff Peters with a neighbor farmer Mrs. Hale come to the house to find clues, however the real detectives are Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale. Thanks to their mindset of a woman, they noticed womanly thing such as Mrs. Wright’s unfinished quilt, and the details like that help solve the case. The women discovers an empty birdcage and later finds the canary to the cage dead with its neck wrung, they quickly put the clues together.