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What is the purpose of the event order in Glaspell's "A Jury of her Peers"?
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The event order in Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers" emphasizes gender differences and the women's unique perspective on the murder. By starting after the murder and focusing on Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, the story highlights their discovery of key evidence and insights into Minnie Wright's motive. This approach contrasts with the men's dismissive attitude and ultimately leads the women to empathize with Minnie and conceal evidence, effectively acting as her jury.
The short story "A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell deals with a murder in a remote rural area in the early 1900s. Glaspell chooses to begin the story after the murder of John Wright, a farmer, and the arrest of Minnie Wright, his wife, because she wants to focus on the reactions of two women who accompany their husbands to the crime scene.
Most mystery stories would follow the search by Sheriff Peters, Lewis Hale, and the county attorney as they look for evidence that Minnie Wright committed the crime. Instead, the story follows Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters as they find clues as to what really happened while they wait for their husbands.
The first event, when Sheriff Peters and the others pick up the Hales in an open buggy, introduces the two women whose opinions provide the focus of the story. Next, the ride...
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to the Wright farm emphasizes the loneliness and desolation of the area and especially of the farmhouse. Mrs. Hale observes:
It looked very lonesome this cold March morning. It had always been a lonesome-looking place. It was down in a hollow, and the poplar trees around it were lonesome-looking trees.
This builds sympathy as the women discover various indications that Minnie Wright was intensely lonely, extremely unhappy, and poorly treated by her husband. As events unfold, they also find enough clues that lead them to believe that Minnie did indeed commit the crime, but that she was perhaps justified in doing so. At the same time, the men go about their business, saying little things that show they consider the women to be their inferiors. The condescension of the men along with the evidence that the women find make the women realize that the men will never really understand what Minnie was going through, and as a result, Minnie will never receive a fair trial. All these events, one after another, lead up to the decision of the women to withhold from the men what they have found out. In effect, they become the jury that acquits Minnie of the crime before the official trial ever takes place.
Glaspell's decision to begin her story with John Wright's murder and Minnie Wright's subsequent imprisonment rather than with the murder itself enables her to stress more effectively the tension and fundamental differences between men and women.
When the men (district attorney, sheriff, and witness) discuss the crime scene, they do so in a very detached manner, disregarding small details that might hint at a motive (what they so badly need to prove Minnie's guilt). In contrast, the women are viewed as harmless annoyances by the men and left to their own devices in "a woman's world"--the kitchen. This opening allows Glaspell to establish early on how differently the men and women view the murder and the importance of various items.
Likewise, Glaspell includes the conversation between Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters about young Minnie v. married, isolated Minnie right before they find the motive evidence (the dead bird) so that readers and the female characters will uncover Minnie's motive before the men reenter the story.
Overall, Glaspell's structure lends itself to one of the story's themes--gender roles.