Women In Susan Glaspell's A Jury Of Her Peers

Often times, in the early twentieth century, women had little chance to become more than the usual family wife - child bearer, cleaner of the house, slave to the kitchen - and could not become anything more for themselves. This is how oppression in Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of Her Peers presents itself. A man, John Wright, has just been killed, and Mr. Peters, the sheriff, is heading to the home where Minnie and John Wright used to live - the former in jail and the latter dead. In his company, his wife, Mrs. Peters (who pleads for Martha Hale’s company), Lewis Hale (Martha’s husband), Martha Hale herself, and a county attorney, Henderson. Glaspell uses specific word choices, setting, and point of view in order to bring sympathy to our protagonist …show more content…
Had it been told in the point of view of the men, it surely would have been mocking Mrs. Wright and the other two women, all the while stopping at nothing to find clues for a motif to take down Mrs. Wright. However, since it is told in the point of view of two fellow women, we catch glimpses of kindness and sympathy. Mrs. Hale regrets not having visited Mrs. Wright when she was in such a state, and both the women go to folding her clothes, fussing over her preserves, and ready to pack a quilt that Mrs. Wright had been working on along with knitting supplies in order to give the imprisoned woman some peace of mind as she worked on it. This is only the more evident when they finally find the motif - a dead parakeet in a small box. When Mrs. Hale stated that Minnie Foster herself was that like a bird, the women seem to have found the breaking point - her husband had taking something so dear away from her, a ray of sunshine in the unhappy marriage, and in turn Mrs. Wright strangled him. Had it been the men, they would have immediately sent the evidence in as proof of the crime. With Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, who sympathize much more with the feeling of oppression and lack of choice, hide the evidence from the