A Misjudged Woman

Salem is a little town where everyone knows everyone and there are no secrets. But like in any small town there can be trouble in paradise. Elizabeth Proctor happened to be a victim in this town. After horrible accusations that were brought against her by a younger girl. These accusations were that she was working with or worshiping the devil. Elizabeth was a good woman who worshiped God and would do anything for her husband, John Proctor. The reason that Abigail brought such a horrible act upon Elizabeth that could be punished by death was because of her relationship with her husband, John Proctor.  Reputation was a huge factor in this novel and played a part in the outcome. Elizabeth was known as a faithful and a religious woman. Not once was she ever thought to do the unspeakable that would go against everything she loved. This was all the act of a wicked child that wanted to get the wife out of the way so she could have her love affair with Mr. Proctor. After the accusations were said things changed for Elizabeth. She was arrested along with other women who are falsely accused. The people were starting to believe what the girls said instead of Elizabeth and the other women. Life seemed to turn upside down for Elizabeth Proctor and there seemed to be no end in sight.

A Jury of Her Peers

In A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell, I think that the sheriffs’ wife, Mrs. Peters, had a hard time being herself and following her instincts because she is married to the sheriff and therefore ‘the law’. In this book, there is a strong sense of male dominance, and I feel like not only Mrs. Wright felt this, but also Mrs. Peters. The men usually laughed at what the women thought, so when they found evidence they decided not to share it with the men. Mrs. Peters understood what Mrs. Wright was going through because she mentioned how she knows what stillness is, which is what they believe Mrs. Wright was experiencing. (99). The problem is that she knows about this stillness but then immediately following she reminds Mrs. Hale of the law and how they must obey it. I think Mrs. Peters feels trapped by her marriage with the sheriff. It is one thing to feel stillness in a relationship. It is another when she is constantly reminded that she must act a certain way because it is right by the law and her husband. They did not share the information because they are sympathetic to Mrs. Wright, in the sense that they understand the feeling of stillness. Mrs. Wright had hope with this animal, but when her husband took that hope away is when she had nothing to lose. I think that Mrs. Peters went against the law and with held information against her husband not only because he wouldn’t believe the women’s theories, but to stand up to him and be herself, and also to support Mrs. Wright because they understand her situation.

Do Not Tie the Knot

Tying the knot in marriage might also lead to tying a knot in a rope looped around your spouse's neck.  In A Jury of Her Peers, Martha Hale and Mrs. Peters are treated like second-class citizens strictly because they are women. They use empathy to connect the pieces to a murder puzzle while a male attorney and sheriff cannot. These two previously unacquainted women formed a strong bond between each other because they were both treated that same, disrespectful way by men. The two men in the story had a dismissive attitude toward anything the women said. Women's rights are a recurring topic in literature. A Jury of Her Peers elicits a scene of ignorance and disrespect when Mr. Hale says, "Oh well, women are used to worrying over trifles." This generalized statement came after the two men were talking about the serious possibility of Mrs. Wright being convicted of murder, but her concern was to warm her preserves to keep them from bursting from the bitter cold weather. In hindsight, the jar of preserves was an integral piece of evidence that could explain the murder. The two women moved closer together after the statement was made, as if to back each other up, in the presence of dominant men. This is an example of a social identity for women in the 1960s. Martha and Mrs. Peters each have their own individual identity; however, they feel stronger in a pair due to discriminatory actions that are persistently taken against them.

A Jury of Her Peers

This whole tale is based of two women who end up solving a crime. The unique part of this is in fact that the women figure out the crime and not the male characters. This is the main theme of the story. This book basically hits on assumption of women and goes out of its way to prove it wrong. The assumptions include things like how women supposedly worry way to much on tariffs of a situation. The one scene that came to mind is when the sheriff takes a shot at the one women by making the claim that women do in fact tend to get over worried about situations. However, the whole point of this book is to prove these type of assumptions wrong, which is eventually they solve the crime and help make a good point that women should be looked out equally.

The Crucible

In The Crucible Abigail is the antagonist. She is all about getting John Proctor to herself no matter who she hurts in the end. She tells lies and manipulates her friends  along with the town. Because of her love for John and not wanting him with his wife she plays dirty and gets nineteen innocent people killed. John Proctor decided he needed to end the affair because of the guilt and loyalty he was feeling towards his wife. Well that didn't sound good for Abigail so she decided to take matters into her own hand and accussed his wife of witch craft to get rid of her. She is a leader and knows she can gets what's she wants well playing miss innocent. She grew up an orphan so she didn't have much and when she got attention from John that was like a  gift from God to her because she is just this low rung on the social latter and John is like God in the womens eyes, so for him to be married and want to have Abigail it made her feel great and that is why she did what she did because she didn't want to go back to that low life girl.

A Jury of Her Peers

The story ‘A Jury Of Her Peers’, written by Susan Glaspell begins repeating back to its readers many of the gendered stereotypical assumptions women receive from men all their lives. Women are assumed to be concerned only with trifles, to be unintelligent, inferior to men and have social limitations placed on them. Yet Glaspell proves how untrue these comments can be, ultimately portraying women as stronger characters when they find their own independence. Women use bonding and moral judgment as means of gaining power and dignity against men to create new gendered assumptions about their characters. The assumption that women are concerned only with trifles is present in ‘A Jury Of Her Peers’. Glaspell reveals this gendered assumption through the comments passed by the sheriff about Mrs Wright being “Held for murder and worrying about her preserves.” Mr Hale than expands on this remark, brushing it off stating “Women are used to worrying over trifles.” Mr Hale is implying that women have nothing meaningful or worthwhile to worry about. Further into the story women are once again ridiculed, this time for wondering about Mrs Wright’s quilt. The sheriff mocks them for their intrigue laughing, “They wonder whether she was going to quilt it or knot it!” The sheriff is implying that women’s lives revolve around domestic affairs and they are incapable of thinking about anything else. These remarks show the disrespect from men and the assumed trifles in women’s lives in ‘A Jury Of Her Peers’. Glaspell puts forward that women are inferior and it is their duty to follow men. This can be seen in the very first paragraph as we give our first impressions on the story. Mrs Hale was expected to leave with her kitchen “in no shape for leaving: her bread already for making, half the flour sifted and half unsifted.” She was then impatiently hurried to not “keep the folks waiting…in the cold.” This was extreme. My argument is definitely women empowerment and how our genders can affect our individual and social identity.  

The truth behind law

The scene that I choose to write about was in the end when Mrs. Peters was trying to hide the sewing box that had the dead bird inside of it, into her pocket. Earlier in the story the county attorney had questioned the integrity of the sheriff’s wife by asking if she was okay to leave alone in the room. The sheriff responded by saying that “a sheriffs wife is married to the law”. The sheriff has just vouched for his wife’s honesty and the sole reasoning that she was married to him that she would do the correct thing being that she was the wife of a sheriff. You would thing by following the social norms that she would have immediately showed her husband what she had found. But in fact she did the complete opposite of this. I find it compelling that Mrs. Peters had the courage to be able to do this. The reason that I think she does this is because not only were they invading her privacy while she was down at the jail. But since there was no real hard evidence that the Minnie foster did not kill her husband. She didn't want there to be more circumstantial evidence that could possibly work against her. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hales had been snooping around while the men were looking other places and they were able to determine that Minnie foster had been stopped in the middle of something but they weren't able to figure this things out prior to the ending of the story.