A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Gaspell

Question:

Mary Helen Washington (from the video) points out that the effect of the setting in "A Jury of Her Peers" is "a tremendous sense of . . . isolation." Write a 150-200 word essay exploring the various kinds of isolation the story’s setting suggests. Be sure to use examples from the text. 

Response: 

Throughout A Jury of Her Peers, Glaspell throws a heavy atmosphere of isolation over the character’s heads. The setting is based off Mrs. Wright and her surroundings, so the character’s can grasp a better perspective on where her motives rooted from. Glaspell slowly unpieces Mrs. Wright’s environment, so with each sentence we are deeper in the feeling of isolation, and getting a better understanding of Mrs. Wright and her intentions. Mrs. Wright is the main symbol of isolation in the story-- everything associated with her has roots of solitude. Starting off, her house is “lonesome-looking”, and far apart from the rest of the world. She is also very emotionally isolated, her husband only hinders her, such as Mrs. Hale states, “I don't think a place would be any the cheerfuller for John Wright's,” adding to Mrs. Wright’s emotional separation from lack of husband support. Also, there is an uninviting connotation associated with her, preventing others like Mrs. Hale from befriending the lonely lady. Moreover, we can say, parallel to her caged bird, Mrs. Wright was caged in isolation, her character is drenched in loneliness. Glaspell also includes isolation in gender. Women are left out because their opinion is not valued. For example, Mr Hale states, “women are used to worrying over trifles.” There is a variation of different types of solitude presented in the story, but I believe Glaspell’s focal point was Mrs. Wright’s physical and emotional distance which promoted the plot of John Wright’s murder.