When I was reading "A Jury of her Peers" I felt like it was comparable to a Lifetime movie. My feelings stem from the ways in which the characters were presented. Having the men and women separated into two distinct groups and then having everyone behave in such a stereotypical fashion gave it that feel. Like many movies on Lifetime, the women are in submissive role to the men, but end up out smarting them in the end. The women were also really emotionally invested in the scene and in Mrs. Wright's predicament while the men could have cared less about her. The fact that Mrs. Hale kept repeating over and over again that she should have went to visit Mrs. Wright added to the tense emotion that the women were experiencing. I found the scene at page break 279 when the women were discussing the dead bird, the fact that Mrs. Wright "cried" the line "Oh, I wish I'd come over here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to punish that?" makes the women's dialog all the more dramatic.
Going back to the men, I feel like their role was to make the women look smarter. The point of any Lifetime movie is to empower women, so to have the men be so dismissive of Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter really contributed to this feeling. When the men were basically poking fun at the women for studying the quilt, it made them look like arrogant jerks. They felt that they were doing important work by looking for clues in the bedroom and the barn, but they failed to notice all of the minor inconsistencies that turned out to be crucial in the end. Had they not been so condescending to the women, maybe they would have been willing to share their some of their thoughts. So yeah, this could totally be on Lifetime!
First of all, I'd have to say that I love the ridiculousness of all Lifetime movies, but in reality you can learn quite a bit from them. My friend Katie thinks that every adventure we have can turn into a Lifetime movie, so I love your comparison. Looking at the short story in this light proves your argument that attention to the small details can solve a case (or at least provide evidence-based generalizations). Like Lifetime movies, we find humor to the ridiculousness of small details; however, without small details, this story wouldn't be displaying the power of attention. Instead it would put emphasis on the large-scale assumptions of a situation rather than the small-scale assumptions that can lead to a larger overall solution.
ReplyDeleteI think it is so funny that you compared this story to lifetime because that is definitely true and I did not realize it until you mentioned it. The example you gave about how the women overcome the men and end up being on top is exactly what always happens in a lifetime movie. I also think that the way the women were hiding their discoveries is also like a lifetime movie in which the evidence and findings are always hidden as well and for the same reason as they were in this story, to protect the women. I actually liked this story better once I thought of it in comparison with a lifetime story!
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