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Loneliness In Susan Glaspell's A Jury Of Her Peers

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It is known that loneliness sometimes makes us senseless. In Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of her Peers” loneliness made Minnie Foster irrational. Mrs. Hale assumes that Mrs. Wright is guilty of killing her husband because of her nonchalant answers she gives when being interrogated about her husband’s location. During the story the reader will learn more about Mrs. Wright, or Minnie Foster, and how her personality changed drastically through her twenty years of marriage with John while Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are covering up the tracks that they presume led to murder. They conclude that loneliness made her lose herself which is evident throughout the short story. When Hale describes the events that occurred the day before, she claims that Mrs. …show more content…

Wright it is easy to tell that she is not at all upset about her husband’s death. When being asked about the situation she “laughed and pleated her skirt” (4). Mrs. Wright is compared to a bird that is found later in the story. The bird was found in a pretty box with marks around its neck. Hale and Peters say that the death of her bird would have been her motive if she actually was her husband’s murderer, but the author utilizes the bird and its broken cage to be a comparison to Mrs. Wright’s life. The bird is Mrs. Wright. It was locked up in a cage as was Mrs. Wright when her husband was alive. He wasn’t a very “cheerful” man, therefore, people didn’t come to visit them. Over the twenty year time period of their marriage she became lonely, which resulted in her buying a bird and the drastic change in personality. The broken door to the cage represents Mrs. Wright’s freedom from her husband. He caused her to be lonely and that caused her to go a little crazy. This madness is what made her feel no sympathy when she realized John was dead. These actions are what led Hale and Peters to come to the result of she killed her own husband. However, the attorney didn’t realize the radical alteration in her personality like Mrs. Hale did, only because he did not know Minnie Foster when she was beautifully happy and full of life. This is evident in the short story when the attorney refers to her as Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Hale

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