Compare And Contrast Wine And A Jury Of Her Peers

Doris Lessing’s “Wine” and Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of her Peers”, both approach the problem of the unsaid in male/female relations. Though the two stories are dissimilar, solidarity amongst women is present in both. In the short story ‘‘Wine’’, by Doris Lessing, what is unsaid between the male and female characters, says a substantial amount about their relationship. Though they seem to want a romantic evening, the male character uses the wine to make the woman pliable. She seems surprised by his abrupt desire for wine, when she states: ‘‘What, […] already?’’ (Lessing, 2). This is a way to control her indirectly. Also, he taunts her mockingly, when he states ‘‘your nose needs powdering’’, but she does not stop herself from talking back when offering him a …show more content…
This frustrates the main character because men should not have that much power over women. Women should have the right to celebrate womanhood and express their desires. Instead, she stays silent to these thoughts. ‘‘A Jury of her Peers’’, by Susan Glaspell, is a short story that illustrates the ‘‘unsaid’’ between the male and female characters. This story also illustrates the solidarity among women. Even though, Minnie Wright might be guilty of killing her husband, the women who act as unofficial investigators, believe she is innocent. Every time the women defend her, the men laugh at them for being ‘‘loyal to [her] sex’’ (Glaspell, 149). The county attorney uses discursive dominance to illustrate this sexism as a joke, but really, it is to depreciate the women. When it comes to the men in Patriarchy, they do not have limits to what is ‘‘sayable’’, unlike women. They are misogynistic; thus, they belittle the women’s capacities. Therefore, when the women find incriminating evidence, they automatically hide it from the men, not to give them reasonable doubt to lock Minnie up for