Guilt and innocence. Only one or the other. But sometimes, the verdict doesn't matter so much as the motives behind the action. Glaspell's story creates suspense by inching through pieces of Mrs. Foster's life in order to find the reasoning behind her guilt. A delicate canary with a wrangled neck points to her guilt and symbolically tells the story of how Minnie's husband broke her. The Fosters' home paints the picture of a lost life. Mrs. Hale, Minnie's peer in position, feels Minnie's presence as they sift through rooms touched by her personal life, feeling the stress worked into her kitchen, her sewing, and her furniture, and ultimately the canary that they would hide to save a woman they found justified in her actions. "Then Martha Hale's eyes pointed the way to the basket in which was hidden the thing that would make certain the conviction of the other woman - that woman who was not there and yet who had been there with them all through the hour," (Glaspell, 425). You can tell so much about someone by their house and the way they live. Minnie's presence through her home compelled the "jury of her peers" to claim her guilty, but justified.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
A Jury of Her Peers
"A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell
Guilt and innocence. Only one or the other. But sometimes, the verdict doesn't matter so much as the motives behind the action. Glaspell's story creates suspense by inching through pieces of Mrs. Foster's life in order to find the reasoning behind her guilt. A delicate canary with a wrangled neck points to her guilt and symbolically tells the story of how Minnie's husband broke her. The Fosters' home paints the picture of a lost life. Mrs. Hale, Minnie's peer in position, feels Minnie's presence as they sift through rooms touched by her personal life, feeling the stress worked into her kitchen, her sewing, and her furniture, and ultimately the canary that they would hide to save a woman they found justified in her actions. "Then Martha Hale's eyes pointed the way to the basket in which was hidden the thing that would make certain the conviction of the other woman - that woman who was not there and yet who had been there with them all through the hour," (Glaspell, 425). You can tell so much about someone by their house and the way they live. Minnie's presence through her home compelled the "jury of her peers" to claim her guilty, but justified.
Guilt and innocence. Only one or the other. But sometimes, the verdict doesn't matter so much as the motives behind the action. Glaspell's story creates suspense by inching through pieces of Mrs. Foster's life in order to find the reasoning behind her guilt. A delicate canary with a wrangled neck points to her guilt and symbolically tells the story of how Minnie's husband broke her. The Fosters' home paints the picture of a lost life. Mrs. Hale, Minnie's peer in position, feels Minnie's presence as they sift through rooms touched by her personal life, feeling the stress worked into her kitchen, her sewing, and her furniture, and ultimately the canary that they would hide to save a woman they found justified in her actions. "Then Martha Hale's eyes pointed the way to the basket in which was hidden the thing that would make certain the conviction of the other woman - that woman who was not there and yet who had been there with them all through the hour," (Glaspell, 425). You can tell so much about someone by their house and the way they live. Minnie's presence through her home compelled the "jury of her peers" to claim her guilty, but justified.
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