Wednesday, May 6, 2020

The Power Struggles in Jury of Her Peers and Mama Come...

The Power Struggles in Jury of Her Peers and Mama Come Home The issue of dominance and subordinance is addressed in the short stories â€Å"A Jury of her Peers† by Susan Glaspell and â€Å"Mama Come Home† by James Tiptree, Jr. In the stories the subordinates are harmed by the dominants, but the subordinates overcome the suppression to triumph in the end. The groups with the power control the laws and the positions of the weaker group. To begin with, â€Å"A Jury of her Peers† is about the way women in 1917 were treated by men. The main women characters are Minnie Wright, Mrs. Peters, and Mrs. Hale. The women in the story are confined to their homes; rarely getting to go to town or visit with their friends. The women did not have many†¦show more content†¦The men also think all the housework the women do and the things they worry about are trifles. The women receive no credit for their work. â€Å"Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?† (Glaspell 264) The women become depressed and lonely. The subordinates are harmed both physically and emotionally in the story â€Å"Mama Come Home.† The giant women overpower the smaller men. They beat the men and rape them. The giant women use the men as sex slaves. They see the men as inferior and only good for sex. The men are physically harmed because they are bruised and beaten by the Capellans. â€Å"The standing one had my neck in a vise at arm’s length, and when I worked the standard finger-bend she laughed like a deep bell and casually twisted up my arm until things broke.† (Tiptree 69) They are emotionally damaged because they are taken advantage of. Anyone that is raped becomes torn up inside. In the story â€Å"Jury of her Peers,† the women are thought of as inferior. The men treat the women like they are not able to do the same things as the men. â€Å"But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?† (Glaspell 266) The women have â€Å"feminine intuition.† They know the pain from isolation that Minnie was going through and know what clues to look for. â€Å"Again, for one brief moment, the two women’s eyes found one another.† (Glaspell 280) The men underestimate that the women can think on this level. The dominants in the story â€Å"Mama Comes

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