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. 

Married to the Law

         When we first meet Mrs. Peters in "A Jury of Her Peers" she is a nervous, dainty, and docile little thing. When the group first gets to Minnie Foster's house, she acts like she wants to get up and run out of the house. After Mr. Hale has relived his story and the group starts to walk around the home the men start to talk about the home itself and clues that could be there. The women start talking about her fruit and her quilting and the men laugh at them for that. The lawyer asks the women to keep their eyes out for any clues that they might run across and Mr. Hale says, "But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?", which is funny because they are the ones who find out exactly what happened in that house by the end of the story.

         As the women walk through Minnie's house they find the dead bird that had pushed the woman to kill her husband in the same way that he had killed her bird. In the end when they found out exactly what Minnie had done the two women stood together gathering Minnie's things. Instead of telling the men what they had found, Mrs. Peter's changed the subject and started talking about Minnie's things that the women had gathered.

Hidden Agenda

Abigail Williams, when we first meet her, seems a warm individual, caring for her cousin who has fallen ill.  Abigail, a pretty girl, is an orphan and the niece of Salem’s Reverend Parris.  Although, an orphan in that particular day and time I’m sure came with concern and caring from the community, and one could assume that being the Reverend’s niece came with a bit of prestige; Abigail Williams was a wicked woman.  It is not more clear or obvious than in Act Three.  Mary Warren, a friend of Abigail, has turned in a deposition to the honorable, yet easily swayed Deputy Governor Danforth, with coaxing from John Proctor.  Danforth has questioned Mary regarding her lies and testimony.  He is in befuddlement over the situation.  He asked Cheevers to retrieve the other girls.  He plans to get to the bottom of this situation!  The girls enter the room and face a cold and direct Danforth.  He has no time for girls games and is worried, maybe even looking for an excuse, or a hope, that his recent decisions have not been based on lies.  He is not allowed to be wrong.  He is not allowed to be made a fool.  He is the Deputy Governor!  Abigail, however, is the jilted, jealous and angry ex-mistress of John Proctor, Mary’s boss, and she will not be denied her hidden agenda of revenge.

 

He questions Abigail.  She meets his questions and stare with indignation.  She is angry that she is now being questioned regarding her testimony when, up to this point, everyone has taken her at her word.  Her secretly destructive, false word.  No one is to know this although they now suspect due to Mary’s deposition.  Abigail quickly turns on Deputy Governor Danforth.  “Let you beware, Mr. Danforth.  Think you to be so mighty that the power of Hell may not turn your wits?  Beware of it!  There is . . .”  Abigail does not waiver in her dealings with  these men of court or community.  She does not care that she has sent innocent people to their deaths.  This is a sport, a game.  She now has Danforth recoiling from her words.  It is clear that he fears her.  Bewitching most in the room with her act of fear and illusion, she quickly turns her attention from Danforth, as she knows she has him where she wants him, to Mary.  Mary, who is quacking with fear of Abigail and is becoming increasingly unsteady and uncertain of mind.  Abigail is well into her performance, the other girls following her lead, mocking Mary until she breaks and runs to Abigail out of fear and hysteria and points a guilty finger at Proctor.   Deputy Governor Danforth has bought every jot and tittle of Abigail’s performance.  Proctor will hang.  Abigail’s mission here is done.