What strikes me the most when I think about these two stories from the beginning of the 1900s is this: It must have been a remarkable thing to be an author writing in those times. The world was suddenly moving faster than it ever had before. The Industrial Revolution had changed much of how America (and the world) worked, thought, and produced. This was no small thing. The authors writing in this time period were witness to a major change in human history.
Nothing stayed the same. Now that processes had begun to be mechanized, the changes brought on by this rippled out into everyday life, touching each person in America. Working and living conditions improved. Life expectancy improved. Agriculture became streamlined. Urban areas began to flourish. And it all happened so quickly, that there was very little time for the people of America to process it all.
So, thank God for the writers, who, like all artists, acted as keen observers and tried with their art to capture what it meant to be alive at that specific moment in time. They also explored the consequences of these changes in their work, which is exactly what we can see in both our examples from today's reading.
"Little Selves" by Mary Lerner and "A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell give us a fascinating look into a world that is struggling to find its footing in the midst of amazing change.
"Little Selves" is a touching portrayal of one woman's deathbed experience, as she searches to go far back into her memories to conjure up versions of her childhood self. This is a particularly telling character detail. After all, many on their deathbeds would easily wander off into memories of love and loss, dwelling, perhaps, on the might-have-beens and conscious mistakes made in the adult life. Our character, however, spends hours daily bringing forth the best, most magical memories from her youth, including the one that finds her realizing her talent in life.
She seems content with the shape of her life, even though she never married or raised children. This would've been a surprising path for a woman of that time, especially an Irishwoman, but she does not seem bothered by it. She does not seem to be wishing for another take, another chance at life. Instead, she seems almost content. The only thing that concerns her is the fact that when she passes on, those "little selves" of her will cease to exist. This causes her momentous sadness, but, thanks to a kindly niece, she passes on these memories of herself and the old country so that these things may be preserved.
And that preservation is something that would be of incredible importance to people living in the early parts of the century. The change is flashing past, bringing uncertainty and newness at every turn, and this, of course, would foster confusion and fear. And the fear of old traditions and memories being lost would be a motivating factor for many citizens--especially the many new immigrants--to clutch to these things even tighter. And isn't that one of the main themes of this story? It perfectly reflects much of what was going on at the time.
The case is similar in "A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell. In fact, the title sheds much light on which of the century's changes is being reflected and examined and perhaps even processed in this short story.
"A Jury of Her Peers" finds us at a murder scene, and two women--who have been mocked and talked down to by the majority of the men at the scene--are tasked with bringing some things back to the suspect who has been locked away for the murder of her husband.
The story's crux has to do with the changing role of women in society at the time. Women were starting to find a voice, starting to realize that they were more than another handy machine to have in the kitchen. They were starting to develop bonds and kinship and use them to their advantage. In fact, some of the first well-organized marches for women's rights were occurring at the time.
And while the characters in this story were not marching at a rally, they were engaged in their own brand of fight: They were examining the miserable situation of Minnie Foster, who had most assuredly murdered her husband, and they were sympathizing; they were recognizing the wretchedness of her life, and they were understanding that the circumstances had brought on something that perhaps she shouldn't be punished for. And so, in an amazing unspoken moment, the women bond together and perpetrate a lie in the faces of the men who had found no clues.
The story's great irony is in that the men, who blustered that they would be able to find Minnie Foster out, that they would be able to uncover some evidence to lock her away for good, were unable to uncover anything that damned Minnie Foster; the women, however, had used their own powers of deduction to suss out the entire mystery. So, while they were being called useless and silly by their male counterparts, they were actually solving the circumstances of the crime and covering it up as they went.
And once again, there it is: our author, Susan Glaspell, is teaching us a lesson through this story about the way things were for women and how they were on the brink of great change.
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