The three women we meet in A Jury of Her Peers are all struggling to conform to what society
believes is accurate for that day and age.
One of those women is Mrs. Peters. When we first are introduced to her, she is described as “small
and thin and didn’t have a strong voice” (3).
Right off she is described as the sort of women who doesn’t seem to be a
sheriff’s wife. When they arrive at the
Wright home the women was asked to join the men by the fire but declined and
decided to stay by the door. They were
staying on the fringes of what was going to take place. Mrs. Peter’s is struggling as to how involved
she should be in the matter. As the men
continue their investigation in the upstairs of the home, Mrs. Peter’s is asked
to grab a few things to take into Mrs. Wright.
The attorney and the sheriff are entrusting Mrs. Peter’s to stay down
stairs and not disrupt anything as she is “one of us” (17). Then she is shot down by Mr. Hale stating,
“But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” (17) She is told one moment that she is part of the group and then the next moment she is just an outsider again.
There is a definite struggle happening with Mrs. Peter’s
through out the book. She is trying to
help her husband, the sheriff, build a case against Mrs. Wright, but then Mrs.
Hale and Mrs. Peter’s begin to find clues to why this crime took place in the
first place. She is struggling against relating to the emotions that Mrs.
Wright struggled with and wanting to help uphold the law as is her duty being
the sheriff’s wife. Mrs. Peter’s knows
her first duty should be to her husband and the law, but then she starts to
relate to Minnie. Mrs. Peter’s knows
what it feels like when “a person gets discouraged-and loses heart” (23). From this point forward, she wants to help
Minnie instead of helping her husband.
This may not be what is expected of her but this is what her heart feels is the right thing to do.
When Mr. Hale said “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it”, it threw me off so bad. Right there and then you can tell that it was in that time period where women wouldn’t do anything really, but just be a wife. They struggled to have the same equal rights are the men do. I talked about Mrs. Hale in my blog and I said the same thing and that was her own husband that said that. For Mrs. Peter’s it must have been tough to either pick women power or her own husband. I personally would of done the right thing, but back then who knows what was actually the right thing.
ReplyDeleteI like your example of Mrs. Hale. I think she is the most obvious example of conflict between what she wants to do and what she feels she is supposed to do. She wants to help a hurt woman, who she sympathizes with because she is also a female in a day and age when they are supposed to be in the background and do chores and take care of kids. But as the sheriffs wife she should stand by her husband as socialization has taught her.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be common for women of this time to have issues with their identity. There was really only one identity/role for a women and that was a housewife. Of course you can't fit everyone of one gender into the same identity. It's nice to see the women in this story show some personality and have the power to make their own important choices.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your thoughts that the women in the story definitely don’t seem to conform to the expectations that society at that point in time would have for them. Interesting that you bring up the point of the fact that the men assume she is one of “them” as it were, when she starts to see what really occurred in the household after she was left alone with the other women. She definitely struggles with following the law and what she perceives to be the “right” thing to do; however her moral compass seems to allow her to empathize with Minnie and therefore is willing to help her case. This is certainly not what’s expected, but clearly she is a good person and wants to do what her moral tells her to do, as opposed to just complying with what society would want her to act.
ReplyDelete