Tales of Mirrored Melancholy: The Yellow Wallpaper and A Jury of Her Peers Anonymous 10th Grade

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman and “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell have plots of very different naturesin one, a mentally disturbed woman is taken to a reclusive house to recuperate while in the other, a woman is accused of killing her husband. However, one common thread that the stories share is the idea of how women at this time are treated or expected to act by others. “The Yellow Wallpaper” describes the life of a lonely woman whose lack of contact with anyone other than her husband causes her to develop a growing obsession with the wallpaper in her bedroom. On the contrary, in “A Jury of Her Peers,” Minnie Foster, a woman accused of killing her neglectful husband is never formally introduced, as she is in jail while the story takes place. The story instead follows two housewives, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, who happen to stumble upon Mrs. Foster’s infatuation her beloved dead pet. It may seem that the main character in “The Yellow Wall Paper” and Minnie Foster in “A Jury of Her Peers” are treated in entirely different ways by those around them as one woman is coddled by her husband while Minnie Foster is ignored by hers, but in reality, both stories highlight the lonely and obsessive tendencies of women...