Twentieth century society places few stereotypical roles on men and women. The men are not the sole breadwinners, as they once were, and the women are no longer the sole homemakers. The roles are often reversed, or, in the case of both parents working, the old roles are totally inconsequential. Many works of literature deal with gendered roles and their effect on society as a whole or on an individual as a person. “A Jury Of Her Peers” and Trifles, both written by Susan Glaspell, are works of literature that deal with socially gendered roles during the early nineteenth century. The two works are almost exactly alike in that the dialogue from “A Jury Of Her Peers” becomes the actor’s lines in Trifles. The gendered roles in the early 1900s place the woman in the kitchen, serving meals, baking bread, and canning fruits and jellies. She was also expected to be a mother to her children and a caretaker to her husband. The man, on the other hand, was expected to take care of his family, providing the home and the food that the wife would prepare. Often when gender plays too much a part in a household, communication is lost. The husband can not see a person when he looks at his wife. This was the case in “A Jury Of Her Peers” and Trifles. The men totally ignored their wives’ thoughts and roles, and, therefore, they missed the entire point of the real motive behind Mr. Wright’s murder. The social gap between men and women in the early 1800s provided the basis for Glaspell’s story, “A Jury Of her Peers” and her play, Trifles.
In 1917 when “A Jury Of Her Peers” was written, women were the homemakers. Although Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale fit the domest…
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…ll her husband will also be her salvation.
Works Cited and Consulted
Glaspell, Susan. “A Jury of Her Peers.” Literature and the Writing Process. Eds. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X. Day, and Robert Funk. 4th Ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice, 1996. 293-307.
Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Literature and the Writing Process. Eds. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X. Day, and Robert Funk. 4th Ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice, 1996. 999-1008.
Glaspell, Susan. “Trifles.” Plays by Susan Glaspell. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., 1920. Reprinted in Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia Eds. New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 1995.
Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2000. 127-137.
Young Goodman Brown’s Moral Decline
Young Goodman Brown’s Moral Decline
The symbolism of Young Goodman Brown’s moral decline bypasses the conscious, logical mind and is located in a more dreamlike process. It is interpreted to show that no one truly falls into the category of good or evil. Hawthorne’s use of symbolism shows the neutrality between good and evil and appearance and reality so that the reader is unable to comprehend the difference. Throughout the story, good and evil are described through a bombardment of metaphors. Brown’s long and winding journey through the forest, for example, represents his struggle between his conscious and subconscious. Brown meets the devil at a fork in the road that symbolizes the paths to heaven or hell. Obviously with the devil at his side, Brown took the latter.
The story begins in Brown’s village. The village is a traditional Puritan background: pure, innocent, and god-fearing, which can also illustrate Brown’s conscious. Before entering the forest, Brown looks back at his wife. As described in the story, Brown sees his wife, Faith, peeping back at him with her pink ribbons blowing in her hair. The pink ribbons embody the safety, security, and refuge from sin Brown was leaving behind. Brown statement, “after this one night I’ll cling on to her skirts and follow her into heaven”(96), shows his guilty pride since he believes he can sin by virtue of his promise to himself.
Leaving the village, he enters the forest which represents his subconscious that is infested with evil and sinister thoughts. Furthermore, it allegorically represents every man’s journey for knowledge, though knowledge is usually intertwined with evil such as the Tree of Knowledge in the Adam and Eve story. All the people and objects B…
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… his faith and morals are surrendered to material things, mainly his wife and the townspeople. When the townspeople succumb to the devil, Brown’s faith and ideals also yield to them. However, he himself does not comprehend that he has forsaken God and been lured into the grasp of Satan. Also, Brown’s lack of emotion indicates that he followed his mind, where the main conflict of the story is, instead of his heart. Due to his deficiency of compassion, he shows no grief for himself. As a result, he becomes faithfully and publicly disengaged and dismisses himself from the community.
Works Cited and Consulted
Benoit, Raymond. “‘Young Goodman Brown’: The Second Time Around.” The Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 19 (Spring 1993): 18-21.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Complete Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc.,1959.