I really enjoyed the story A Jury of Her Peers. Even the title gives a big clue as to what the story is about. It suggested to me that it will be about a woman because of the word ‘her’. It may also be about a crime that involves one of her peers or friends. It feels to me as if the entire story has clues and foreshadows everywhere. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters judged their husbands as being unreasonable and belittling. I feel the same way because of how the county attorney kept laughing at the things the ladies were saying. Even though the county attorney was obviously insulting the women, the husbands did not do anything. In fact, they seemed to enjoy his ‘sense of humor’. Another clue comes from the way they tried to look for evidence and continuously left the women in the kitchen because “women are used to worrying over trifles”, and “would a women know a clue if they come upon it?”
The characters of Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale influence our understand of how women of that period thought and how they understood the loneliness that Mrs. Wright must’ve experienced. The narrator’s tone also gives a clue as to how the narrator must’ve felt about the situation. The narrator gave more insights of the women’s points of view than the men’s. This makes me feel that the narrator is siding with the protagonist in this story. The narrator emphasized on his/her understanding of the women in the story and the unreasonable behavior of the men.
Setting plays a huge role in this story because it was repeatedly mentioned that the place was not cheerful at all. Mrs. Hale repeatedly tells Mrs. Peters that she never came to the house because of how depressing it was and how lonely it seemed. This setting is important because it can be the main cause of the crime in the story as Mrs. Hales believe. It could also be an outcome of what has happened in the house. Either way, the setting of the story gives us an idea of how the story will progress.
The stories are probably dated back in the 1800’s. This may have been a time when women still had no rights, or is beginning to have some rights. We can see that women are belittled throughout the story, and they can’t say anything about it. Once her husband asks her to leave with him, she has to leave everything half finished and leave immediately with him. Although I think situations are a lot better now for women, there are still stories about women who are mistreated. Women still do not have as much rights as men.
Over all, great read!
