A Jury Of Her Peers Essay

The story of ​“A Jury of Her Peers”​ took place in a rural agricultural area of Tennessee, when there was a obvious division of gender roles. The effect to the story by this kind of place is that it creates a sad and depressed atmosphere and foreshadows us to the plot of the story. As the story progress, the author describes more about how the seasons are like, how the place looks like and how the weather are. The author mentioned about the “storm-door” rather than mentioning the a normal door, which indicates the weather in the beginning of the story as a stormy one. Later on in the story, everything gets more intense as the author mentions more about something odd, bad stove, and a broken bird cage door. With all these things, they do not only create a dark mood and tone to the story, but also foreshadowing the fact that worse things are going to happen in the plot, increasing tension and interest gradually. Many things in the setting are used as a symbol to reflect Mrs.Wright’s life. The author starts the symbolization by giving the readers clues about when the story takes place, and later describing objects in order for the readers to compare them with Mrs.Wright’s life. The first element that was mentioned was the period of time between the end of Winter and in the start of Spring, indicating Mrs.Wright in the present time. The Winter symbolizes her life when oppressed by her husband, but when she decides to murder him, season changes into Spring, symbolizing a new life where she wouldn’t have to be imprisoned by her husband. The season leads to the next symbol, being the jam jar. It represents her mental state, pressured by the coldness of Winter, representing her husband as well, that Mrs.Wright couldn’t stand any further, breaking the jar. The next symbol is the bird which shows how Mrs.Wright was treated during the past years. The author writes about the similarity with those two that they loved to sing. Being stuck in bird cage could be interpret that the bird didn’t have freedom at all, just like Mrs.Wright that she couldn’t go where else to make friends. These symbols that are thoroughly emphasized by the author are trying to express the same thing about Mrs.Wright not getting freedom. This could convince the reader very well about how Mr.Wright, as a man, did something incorrectly.

The setting are used to express a message to the readers in all period of time about women rights. The author tries to convey a message to the reader through almost every part of the literature by using symbols and mood, obtained from the settings, to at least raise an awareness of woman not being treated well by men. The dark depressing mood that the author use make the readers feel like woman are being pushed to their corners by men. The symbols of Mrs.Wright being oppressed throughout the story, obtained from both nature and objects, are being emphasized so much to raise awareness to the readers, so that they could at least keep these facts in mind. This message contributes to the story as a whole by making the story focuses on this message, which makes it easier and more effective to convey because only one core value is being told again and again.