Preview

Jury of Her Peers Analysis Essay Example

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1466 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Jury of Her Peers Analysis Essay Example
The Killing of a Canary
The short story “A Jury of Her Peers” written by Susan Glaspell is about a murder investigation that has taken place in a rural farm house. This story describes vividly how families lived in rural America and the challenges that they faced. Although readers never meet the murder suspect Mrs. Wright, they understand her due to how her peers perceive her. Mary Bendel-Simso explains in her essay that there is a difference between genders and the only people who can judge Mrs. Wright are her female peers. The men in the story want to punish Mrs. Wright without question, but the women show sympathy for her (Bendel-Simso). The story “A Jury of Her Peers” is an excellent example of how men and women view events differently even though it is set in the early 1900’s.
The plot of a story can be defined as the relationships and patterns of events. The plot in Glaspell’s story is the investigation of an apparent murder of a man by his wife in the viewpoint of men and women. The males in the story, Mr. Hale (who discovered the murder), Mr. Peters (the Sheriff) and Mr. Henderson (the County Attorney) are at the farmhouse where the body was discovered in an attempt to reconstruct the crime. The wives of Mr. Hale and Mr. Peters are also present and stay mainly in the kitchen. Although the women were not there to investigate the crime, they learn more about how the Wright couple lived than the male investigators. While gathering items for Mrs. Wright to use in jail, the women find a damaged bird cage and later the body of a strangled bird. The male investigators come in and out of the room and pay little attention to what their wives are doing as they considered it unimportant. The women silently agree to keep the motive for the murder from their husbands in a sense of sisterhood they felt with Mrs. Wright.
The characters in this story are the people the author creates. In “A Jury of Her Peers” the characters consist of Mr. and Mrs. Wright, Mr.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Although the theme of Susan Glaspell's "Jury of Her peers" is about the ultimate fate of Minnie Wright, the central story line is about a key character that determines Mrs. Wright's fate. Mrs. Hale's influence to the story is almost accidental because she unintentionally stumbles upon evidence that links Minnie to the murder. She never had the intent to find evidence against Minnie, she was just there to pack up a few things for her and be done with it. Her curiosity and wonder arose when she found certain things in the Wright's home that seems peculiar and out of place for the Minnie Foster she had known twenty years prior to her marriage to Mr. Wright. Her character traits which include but are diffidently not limited too sympathy, assertiveness, and her attention to detail are brought out by the comments and actions of others; yet the author picks certain ways to bring out these qualities.…

    • 1247 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “I’d hate to have men comin’ into my kitchen snoopin’ around and criticizing (Glaspell)”, Martha Hale said testily. Martha Hale is a minor character in a short story by Susan Glaspell “A Jury of Her Peers. She is at a friend’s house with her husband, the county sheriff, and his wife looking for motives to a murder. Martha Hale cares about other’s feelings, hates to see things unfinished, and wants to make a difference in Minnie Foster’s life.…

    • 472 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Since the 1900’s, women have struggled with gender roles in society that leaned more in favor of men. Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, reflects on this struggle by blatantly separating the ideas, opinions and actions of the men and women in the play. As the title Trifles suggests, the men in the play view the two women’s concerns as unimportant and frivolous in comparison to the “real” work the men have to do. Glaspell’s characterization of the sheriff, Henry Peters, the attorney, George Henderson, and the neighboring farmer, Mr. Hale, portrays them as typical men of the time who decide to take charge because, as men, that is their duty and only they know what can be done and how to go about discovering the truth. They only take along Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters to collect some things for Mrs. Wright, never taking a moment to think that from a woman’s perspective, the answer to the murder could be found.…

    • 1480 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    On June 19, 1994 O.J Simpson the football hall of famer was arrested in California for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Simpson was arraigned in court two day later he pleaded not guilty to the charges and was held in the Los Angeles County jail. Jury selection began in October and the jury was sworn in on November 2, 1994. Mr. Simpson did have a jury of his peers, because the jury was twelve jurors some African American and white. The jurors were picked through the voir dire process. With each juror understanding that they could not have any personal bias pertaining to the case. A series of question were asked to the jurors to determine if the potential jurors had exposure to the context of the case. In the pretrial hear the credibility of evidence from detective Mark Fuhrman would be admitted at trial. Prosecutors said that they thought Mr. Simpson dropped the glove as he tried to quickly return to his home after committing the murders.…

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Throughout time, scholars have wanted to understand American women’s history. Gender has played a role in shaping the behaviors and ideas within societies. The gender role that women played can be looked at in a historically specific manner. In the early 1500s through the late-nineteenth century, women have had a silenced place in society and within their home. This ideology silences real women’s voices under patriarchal structures. In the time period of Early America, women were silenced through various factors such as the laws and ideas created within marriage, views of women given by society, and…

    • 2180 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the Victorian era, men were more socially accepted because of their gender. They had more social power because society gave more trust, responsibility, and rank to men. The choices women made were based on the men they lived around. Males were the dependents of the woman’s future, whether it was as family, or workers. Yet this was the perspective of everyone, it was not always fair, nor true.…

    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “A Jury of Her Peers” is a short story created Susan Glaspell, that demonstrates differences in how genders perceive things. This story takes place in Dickinson County, Iowa in the early 1900s. The story consists of the murder of John Wright, and the arrest of his wife for the murder. The whole story occurs the day after the murder, when the sheriff, the sheriff’s wife, the county attorney, and a couple that live nearby, visit the Wright’s house to figure out what actually happened the day before. This story makes it sound as if people see things differently based on gender, but in my opinion, the main reason for their difference in how they see things is prejudice and sexism. It was not necessarily that the women in this short story see so…

    • 240 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Men and women do not always see things the same way, and often time’s, men consider themselves as superior to women because of their way of thinking. In “Jury of Her Peers”, the men, Mr. Peters, Mr. Hale, and Dr. Lloyd, are trying to solve the murder case and leave the women to their “trifles” in the kitchen while they work on the case. The men in the story seem to think that they are the only ones who are smart enough to solve the case or to know what evidence is, and in the end it is this misconception that allows the women to hide the evidence they find from the men. Susan Glaspell uses these gender…

    • 1423 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Repression of Female’s Individuality in Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”…

    • 1160 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    However, in the new culture of the 20th century, the tides begin to change. Instead of men being privileged women now lead in social superiority. This is a result of overcompensation. A specific place where this new gender bias is illustrated, can be found in chapter 18 of To kill a Mockingbird. Mayella Ewell sits before the judge, and tells her alibi (238-254). Because of her feminine touch to the situation the jury end up letting her go. Mayella lied to the jury, and got away with it. Many would say that this was because she was white, but there may have been a twinge of gender bias in the jury’s decision. The reality that gender bias could hurt both men and women is slowly creping up on…

    • 642 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Future management regarding language interpretation must be developed to assist with foreign criminals, and others who do not speak the English language. The increase in population among non-English-speaking citizens requires the criminal justice system to meet certain constitutional rights. These rights are included in the Fourth, Fifth, Fourteenth, and Sixth Amendments. Without victim right laws court proceedings may result in unfair rulings because these rights help determine the flow of court proceedings, and the victims input must be considered in the ruling of criminals. If victim right laws were never created court proceedings would be one-sided, and the jury or judge would never understand the level of pain caused during from criminal act.…

    • 1135 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    American novelist Harper Lee in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird wrote, “I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system—that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.” I had nervously opened the envelope with “Official Jury Summons” stamped on the outside many times before the autumn of 2014, however, up until that point, I had been lucky and avoided selection. My once thriving town was beginning to feel the consequences of a declining economy and increased poverty. My fellow citizens walked the streets with an almost…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Jury Selection

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Jury selection are various methods used to decide who will be on the jury. The jury pool is initially chosen from among the community utilizing a random strategy. Jury records are gathered from voter enlistments and driver permit/state id. From these records, some people are mailed. They will be addressed in court by the judge and/or lawyers in the U.S. According to Shari Seidman, in some cases such as capital punishment, the jury must be death qualified. Jury procedures are taught in law institutions to law students. The jury chose is said to have been empanaled.…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Jury Trial

    • 670 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Having a Jury Trial is known to be a part of the Adversarial System. Which is when exhibits, evidence, and witnesses are assembled by representatives of one side or the other to convince the fact finder that their side’s viewpoint is the truer one. Contrasted to that approach is the inquisitorial approach, used in mostly Europe. In this approach the Judge is given more control over the proceedings. The judge will interrogate the disputing parties and witnesses, referring frequently to a dossier that the court prepared. The Jury Trial is held to get a less biased decision and also a more truthful one. A trial gives attorneys more motivation to present the jury with all the evidence of the case, with a final goal of the jury ultimately…

    • 670 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    CRJ 1 Final

    • 1392 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The role women play in society, many people believe, is that women are innocent and nothing can go wrong. According to a case from “The Crime and Punishment In American History” book, it talks about a case regarding Lizzy Borden and her being convicted of the murder of her father and stepmother. In this case, the prosecutor attempts to charge Lizzy Borden of axing down both her father and stepmother in their home in Massachusetts. In this case, however, Lizzy was seen as being innocent and many believe it cannot be her to murder her father and stepmother. The society are willing to believe it to be the servant or some other suspect. I personally found this information quite fascinating because it shows how much injustice can get involved when gender plays a part in your favor. With society on your side believing that women are not murderers nor violent, it is hard to believe or convict Lizzy Borden of the killing of her father and stepmother. Another example is about Clara Fallmer, from the…

    • 1392 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays