Most Western societies have been predominantly patriarchal for most of history. Gender roles and many societal restrictions bounded women for centuries. Fundamental human rights like voting, abortion, and equal pay had to be fought for. Therefore, it is no wonder why many literary works reflect the unfair reality of gender discrimination, and some go as far as to question the law. Characters that showcased this pressing social issue are Mary from “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl and Minnie Foster in “A Jury of Her Peers,” written by Susan Glaspell. Setting and theme in “Lamb to the Slaughter” and “A Jury of Her Peers”’ show that while women appear murderers from the law standpoint, gender roles also make them victims from a justice’s point of view.
Firstly, the theme of simultaneously being a victim and a murderer is prominent in both “Lamb to the Slaughter” and “A Jury of Her Peers.” The similarity of these two stories is apparent since both Minnie and Mary end up killing their respective spouse. However, what brings the characters to breaking the law is the symbolic murder of their independence. A female character in “A Jury of Her Peers” is shown to be almost literally trapped in an unhappy household and gender roles, making her a victim of years of abuse. A metaphor that leads to that assumption is a final discovery of a pet bird killed by a husband. Similar to a bird, Minnie was in a cage of gender roles and “used to sing [but] he killed that too” (Glaspell 265). Oppressive gender roles and abusive husband assassinated a happy woman in Minnie, and she saw the only escape in revenge.
In parallel to being “caged” by gender stereotypes, Mary in “The Lamb to the Slaughter” was so focused on being a good wife that she seemed to have no personality outside that gender-role based persona. Dahl wrote, “She loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man and to feel—almost as a sunbather feels the sun—that warm male glow” (58). Mary’s fixation on the role of a good wife limited her to a point when her personality was metaphorically murdered. To have her freedom back, she had to kill her husband in response. While the way female characters were figuratively murdered differs, the sole fact of being limited to the role of a wife drove women to kill and overstep the boundaries of the law. In that way, the authors question the fairness of law in the face of justice. Through their short stories’ themes, they arrive at the unified conclusion: women “caged” by gender stereotypes are victims of a crime similar to murder, equalizing them.
Secondly, the setting, serving as a murder scene, also provides a reader with a reflection of women’s suffering and a crime that has been symbolically done to them. For instance, “Lamb to the Slaughter” introduces the reader to a tranquil scene of a seemingly perfect family household. The story starts with the words “the room was warm”(Dahl 58). The environment seems too comically idyllic in the way it portrays the gender role of a wife who sacrificed her interests to serve her husband. Unlike “Lamb to the Slaughter,” the background in “Jury of Her Peers” is grim and unclean, and men note that Minnie barely “had the home-making instinct,” which made her a bad wife (Glaspell 257).
For both the literary works, the setting serves as an accurate reflection of the emotional state of women and the place for continuous abuse that threatened their identities. In Dahl’s novel, the reader sees a welcoming, yet husband-centred house, which indicates that the spouse was a focal point for Mary’s life, not her own. However, after the revelation about the husband’s betrayal, the scene changes drastically along with the emotional state of Mary and becomes flooded with police. The surrounding in “Jury of Her Peers,” in its turn, provide a reader with elaborate hints at what the family life was like for Minnie, killing her identity slowly. The husband terminated his desire to clean, to sing, and to be happy, resulting in a sad home as a perfect crime scene.
The setting is portrayed drastically different in both works, and it reflects the emotional state of deprived female characters in a patriarchal society. In a sense, it is also a murder scene for women’s lives. The surrounding environment is a powerful tool to slow the progression or decline of a character. In both stories, it is a place where the murder occurs, but not only the literal one of the husbands. The environment gives hints at those subtle discriminatory crimes that provoke revenge. What is also killed in the premises of the story are the women’s identities confined by the barriers that the gender role establishes.
In conclusion, the theme and setting in “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Dahl and Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” each tell a story of two murders, a physical killing of a husband, and a symbolic murder of a wife’s independence. Stories showcase a theme of escape from gender roles through breaking the law in two similar scenarios with different settings. Due to the oppression of women, the subject appears to be universal. While the plot and the metaphors to highlight the issue are different, the theme still reflects the many limitations of gender stereotypes. Setting for both literary works showcases a patriarchal, predominantly abusive society that harms female characters, driving them to murder. In their differences, short stories reflect the tragic trope of denying rules for the justice of freedom.
Works Cited
Dahl, Roald. “Lamb to the Slaughter.” The World’s Best Short Stories: Anthology & Criticism, vol. 5, Roth Publishing, Inc, 1991, pp. 58–60.
Glaspell, Susan. “A Jury of Her Peers.” The Best Short Stories of 1917 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story, edited by Edward J. O’Brien. Small, Maynard & Company, 1918, pp. 256-269.