m-essay


 * UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE MINAS GERAIS **

**FACULDADE DE LETRAS **

**LEONARDO RODRIGUES **

**LUCAS SILVA MARRA **

**YVETTE GOSSEL **

**GIOVANNI RODRIGUES MAZOCHI **

**Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of Her peers" **
 * and Gender Roles in former times and today **

Trabalho final apresentado à disciplina Produção de Texto do curso de Letras. Profa. Vivian Margutti Belo Horizonte, Novembro, 2011 Have gender roles changed, comparing former times with today? There has definitely been a revolutionary change in attitudes towards the behavior of men and women and their role in society and family. Women still struggle to have equal rights but the path is much clearer than before. To prove this statement and to get an impression of the way women were treated in the beginning of the 20th century, we will use the short story “A Jury of Her Peers“, written by Susan Glaspell as the base of our work, linking studies about the gender's role in society with an analysis of the short story and its historical context. The author Susan Glaspell, born in 1882 in Davenport, Iowa, first worked as a journalist and her stories were published in magazines. However, later on she dedicated herself to evolve plays. Predominantly ,  she wrote stories with a feminist background, dealing with the women’s roles in society and their behavior in the relationship between men and women. (reference?) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Her short story “A Jury of Her Pears” was alsooriginally <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">(use either also or originally) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">written as the play <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> called <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> “Trifles”, which <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">(what does this refer to: the short story or the play? Unclear. Please, rewrite.) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">she rewrote in the year of 1917; one year after her play was published. However, both versions were inspired by a real case, which occurred while she was working as a reporter. Glaspell’s short story deals with the case of a woman called Minnie Wright, who is accused of the murder of her husband. When the sheriff and some other men tried <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">try ( <span style="color: green; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">You started off telling the story using the present tense. You should continue doing so until the end of the essay <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">to find the <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">(unnecessary) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">evidence for the murder on <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">in <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">the Wright’s house, the wives of these men, while they are waiting for their husbands, they <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">(unnecessary) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">manage to find clues that can clarify the crime scene, by being able to put themselves in Minnie Wright’s position. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">The author demonstrates the stereotypical role, <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">(delete) of <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">how women were supposed to act <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (this should be better explained, considering examples from the story) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">and how the feelings caused by this oppression, as well as, their wish of ending up with this unfair treatment towards women in general. <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">(This excerpt is very unclear and should be rewritten) Are these ideas yours or have you read about them? Where? <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">The topic of "Women’s Rights”, is definitely an issue in this short story. In the beginning of the XX century, men in general, had a very few consideration about women’s opinion and perspective. The story explores the fact that sometimes women are more capable than men by having a different perspective of the facts. On showing the women’s perspective and concern about details, the author gives us an impression of smarter than men, and that they are more than capable of outwit any man.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> We can also see a representation of how women used to be treated by men. Portraying history, women did not have rights in the beginning of the century; most of them did not even work outside their house. Their only job they had was to keep their houses clean and ready for their husbands. Their opinion did not matter; they should keep it to themselves and respect the authority of the husband. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">In “A Jury of Her Peers”, there are many aspects of Women’s Behavior and Gender Holes in Society. It starts in Dickson County with Martha Hale, being abruptly called to a crime scene with Lewis Hale, her husband; Sheriff Peters, the county sheriff; and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife. From the beginning, we can notice what the women’s status in a family within the society: they are called only by their marriage names, referring to their subservience towards their husbands. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">During the investigation in the house, the men are focused on the visible and obvious facts, while the women pay attention to small things. Here we have the level of prejudice towards women and men, as they call this “little things” or trifles, also joking that the women could not notice an evidence if they found one. In the kitchen, they complain about the mess, as if the women’s work is not done (their job was to take care of the house, keep it clean). According to Marina Angel, the men occupy, the public, political, outside sphere. In this part, the house represent this place (with the men talking and walking through it), while the women stay in the kitchen, a reference to the <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">“the prototypical women's room. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">” (ANGEL, 2011)

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">As the men go upstairs, the women start noticing little details referring to Minnie: the broken stove, for example, refers to maltreatment; the broken jar, by extreme cold, like the “coldness” of her husband towards her (the jar representing Minnie and the cold climate as the way Mr. wright treated her). In the kitchen, there were a lot of half-done things, the mess, half clean table, half made bread, all related to the unequal valueof women and men’s work and place in society, as indicated by Marina Angel. Also, the women found an unfinished quilt and started speculating whether Minnie was going to knot (a faster, more roughly way) or quilt, as a reference to how she would kill her husband: learning to knot her quilt she would also learn knot the hope to strangle her husband, a painful and slow way to kill, a way Mrs. Wright could unleash all her rage <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">against him.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">After looking for evidences upstairs, the men decided to have a look into the barn while the women stayed inside. That’s when the women started to look the house for themselves. As wives, they had to wait for their husbands; according to Marina Angel, the absence of men in the house at the moment could represent a “permission” for the women to go beyond the kitchen. In the other rooms, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale found more signs of abuse: when they go upstairs to Minnie’s room, they find a dead bird and the torn cage door. Marina Angel said: “The canary was like Minnie Wright; "she was kind of like a bird herself." "Wright wouldn't like the bird....a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too." Just as John Wright strangled the canary and killed its voice, he silenced Minnie Wright by slowly strangling her”. Also: “Physical abuse must be inferred from, e.g., the killing of the canary, the violently torn cage door...” With this, the women understood the whole case, as these two new evidences clearly represented the critical situation the Wright couple was living (the husband destroying every vestige <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">of happiness and life in Mrs. Wright).

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">The men returned to the house with nothing new, but the women, with the solved case decided not to tell, and they even hide some evidences, like the dead bird in the little box. There were a lot of half-done things, the mess, half clean table, half made bread, all related to the unequal valueof women and men’s work and place in society, as indicated by Marina Angel. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">As we analyze this short story about women in general, their behavior and status in the society, it also seems likely to focus on the topic <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> of <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> "Feminist Literature". <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Is this meant to be a paragraph? <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the nineteenth century female literature gained influence on the American scene. Writers such as Kate Chopin and Fanny Fern started to write marvelous works, which contributed a lot to the American literary area. Those writers mostly wrote about the inequality of sexes and the inability of women to live their own lives without reliance on men, since the patriarchal system affected both, men and women, who would have felt very discouraged to challenge their male partners. **<span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">(New paragraph) ****<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Glaspell, who struggled with similar themes and concerns, inherited a rich legacy from these women. The end of the nineteenth century presents the emergence of many female writers, which dealt with issues similar to those that would concern Glaspell, since the women started to identify themselves with the stories. They read them and probably felt more encouraged to really stand for a better position in the North American society. The focus of most of this literature was on "women and their lives--or, in other words,they chose to write about themselves"(Wolpart, J). ****<span style="color: green; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> This the first reference to your sources in the whole essay! ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Kate Chopin and Fanny Fern represent two writers who are a part of this rich history. <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Chopin, in <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">her works wasconcerned with exploring relationships among various classes and, especially, relationships between men and women. Chopin’s favorite theme was he inherent conflict between the traditional requirement that a wife form her life around her husband’s and a woman’s need for discrete personhood.Indeed, the works of Chopin and Fern helped pave the way for other female writers such as Glaspell, according to Wolpart, J. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">In addition to the influence of the female writers who came before her, the venue of the Provincetown Players served to mature Glaspell as a writer. The Players became a major artistic influence of the time, and a major influence in Glaspell’s life, giving her a forum and voice for her ideas and introducing her to new people and new thoughts. Her husband, George Cook, also a member of the players, introduced her to new ways of thinking: "...she had met Cook and was pulled into the world of socialism, a concern with women's suffrage, and a more realistic apprehension of the world around her--a new vision--which was expressed in her second novel.The Players also helped Glaspell mature; Bigsby suggests, "in Susan Glaspell it [Provincetown Players] produced a writer much more accomplished than her present dwindled reputation would suggest. Bigsby notes that Glaspell wrote eleven of the ninety-three plays produced by the Players (20). The Provincetown Players greatly influenced Glaspell by connecting her to new people and ideas, by maturing her as a writer, and by providing her an avenue for expression. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">As we have got an impression of woman’s behavior and status in former times, presented in the paragraphs before, we finally should have a look at the question, how gender roles have changed and if they still exist today. <span style="color: green; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Lack of connection between this paragraph and the previous. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Many people are concerned that Gender Roles have changed completely and that women are treated equally to men. But if we start looking at the situation today and who really runs the household, we still must admit that predominantly women do so. Even though there is, for example, the Spanish “housework law”, which deals with the fact that men should participate in housework and support their wives in equal parts. But Spanish men do not really take it seriously, as it seems to be only a “symbolic value” (Scott, J.) than having any influence on courts judgments. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">Based on polls, the ideology and the domestic behavior of both genders in our days are definitely changing, but it has to be mentioned that men are changing less quickly and to a lesser extent than women are. As a matter of fact, as women are more and more taking part in the well paid positions and work as much as men, they are getting in trouble because of their non supportive husbands, which leads to a dual burden for the women. This dual burden demonstrates very clearly that we have not reached equality yet, as, according to polls, many women still have to quit their job in order to be able to do the housework. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">In addition to that, many men in our days are still convinced that tasks like cooking, washing and cleaning are “women’s work” and the man should be the “breadwinner” and go to work. Looking at this way of thinking, the initiatory question, whether we still have to deal with this topic today is answered with a simple “Yes”. But on the other hand it must be admitted that there are changes and “increasing rejection of traditional gender roles” (Scott, J.), because “secularization and increased education are working in the same direction to challenge traditional gender role ideology” (Scott, J.). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">Still undefined is, if and how these shifts in gender role ideology will have effect on the “equitable gender division of labor” (Scott, J.). It must be remembered that, even though it is illegal, that a woman in the same position, having the same qualities as the man, still gains less in our days. This is coupled with the fact that, many bosses prefer man in positions with a lot of responsibility, thinking of the simple fact, that a woman could get pregnant or not be able to work under that much pressure besides having a family. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Thinking of <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">the presented data and <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">what has been mentioned before, we come to the conclusion that there has not been a revolutionary change in attitudes towards family behaviors. It is true, that the importance of family life is declining, but, even the most liberal countries in the world, haven’t abandoned old values and ideas about sexual morality, faithfulness and loyalty towards their partner yet; whether in marriage or in form of modern relationship or partnership models. Looking at the different partnership models there can also be mentioned, that men are discriminated in terms of paternity. In many countries the child is more likely to be given to the mother, in case of a separation of the parents, even though it is not an infant and in need of their mother anymore. As we are seeking for equality, in my opinion, we should also concentrate on the disadvantages of men, as we want them to participate more in the jobs at home, like taking care of the children and the housework. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Revising all the mentioned facts, we should focus on the introducing thesis, if there are only little changes in gender roles today in comparison with former times <span style="color: green; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Precisely when? <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">. It definitely has to be admitted that there has been a certain change in the role of women, in terms of individual autonomy, female emancipation and in terms of socio-legal changes in the family, but it also has to be mentioned that there still exist parts of the traditional gender roles, like it has been explained before. Until today, we still have to deal with the traditional way of thinking of the different roles of men and women. <span style="color: green; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">What’s the connection between these ideas and the previously studied one, related to the short story and the beginning of the XIX century? This questioned must be answered in the conclusion. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bibliography: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">WOHLPART, J (Director). //American Literature//: Research and Analysis Web Site. Disponível em: < [] > Acesso em: 20 de out. 2011 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">ANGEL, M. //Teaching the short story A Jury of Her Peers and the play Trifles//. Disponível em: < [] > Acesso em: 20 de out. 2011 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">SCOTT, J. //Family and Gender Roles//: How Attitudes Are Changing. Disponível em: < [] > Acesso em: 20 de out. 2011 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">AVERRE, B. //Sociology and Gender Roles//: Gaining an Understanding of Today’s Gender Roles in the Forum of Sexual Behavior in American Society. Disponível em: < [] > Acesso em: 20 de out. 2011