"A Jury of Her Peers"
By: Susan Glaspell
Told from a third person omniscient point of view, "A Jury of Her Peers" presents a short story of gender roles and varying themes. The omniscient point of view, due to its ability to present such themes, becomes crucially important to the presentation of the story. For, because of the style, the narrator tells the story by focusing on one character, mostly Mrs. Martha Hale, to present the views of that character while knowing everything about many of the other characters.
In the short story, the narrator's ability to see and discover the intentions of the other characters from the view of an omniscient overseer is valuable in determining and understanding the complexity of the story. For, from this view the reader is able to see the theme of gender roles. Looking from both the male and the female perspective, the narrator presents the idea that men see the job of women as simply performing house chores while women view it as more complex and challenging. From the view of Mrs. Hale, another theme arises. That theme is the idea of "Things begun-and not finished (416)." This is a constant challenge for Mrs. Hale as she struggles with seeing things unfinished and unclean. In response to this idea, another theme is addressed. The theme of "A person gets discouraged and loses heart (417)," suggests a reason why such tasks at times go undone. For, without heart one is unable to complete the task and thus is unable to fulfill their gender role.
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