“Lamb to Slaughter” by Roald Dahl and “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell are stories that revolve around two female murderers, Mary Maloney and Mrs. Wright (Minnie Foster), who kill their husbands under different circumstances. While the two women and the culprits the authors manage to exhibit them as “frightened and venerable wives” in the stories. The exhibition makes elusive the judicial system that defends them from their respective murders with the excuse of the evils of a patriarchal society. Mary and Mrs. Wright's characterization, settings, style, and circumstances are built around stereotypical gender roles and a distorted idea of justice that make them elusive and present them as victims rather than homicidal maniacs. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay. Both women, Mary and Mrs. Wright, are confined by their patriarchal societies to domestic roles. Mary is a housewife who waits for her husband to arrive at 5pm every working day, cooks for him, sits down to sew, and focuses on making her husband comfortable. Despite being heavily pregnant, Mary is always busy serving her husband, Patrick Maloney. Likewise, Mrs. Wright is a housekeeper and knitter, her husband. Mr. Wright is allegedly hard-living and violent “Although she has often been characterized as disturbed and abused, there has been little speculation about the nature of her mental condition or the types of violent behaviors she has experienced in her marriage” (Glaspell). The examples of housework, abuse and submissive nature of women in the stories reveal their domesticity and male chauvinism. They were reduced to simple domestic servants without the possibility of pursuing a professional career. The denial of self-development is weighing, which can pass as a nice issue to explain/justify them as victims. Additionally, Mary and Mrs. Wright are able to become elusive to the male-dominated jury/justice system. After hitting her husband with a frozen leg of lamb with the impact of a steel bat, Mary destroys all evidence by convincing the investigating officer to eat the lamb, the murder weapon after an officer stated: “You get the gun and you got the man.” Ultimately, the men are unable to piece together the evidence as they destroy it themselves. In Susan Glaspell's story, Mr. Wright's murder is obvious; held with the presumption of being crazy without evidence to prove Mrs. Wright's motive towards the murder Nonetheless leaves traces in the uncoordinated sewing, in the empty cage and in the remains of birds that only the female investigators are able to recognize male jury would laugh at the evidence and ignore it, they also decide to save themselves by keeping both stories secret, the male investigators see things on the surface and ignore the essential details; murderers. As a result, women are able to cheat the male-dominated justice system. Mary and Mrs. Wright contrast in their motivation to kill and ideas of justice. On the one hand, Mary kills her husband for asking for a divorce. It seems like there is nothing to lose because she has already lost everything she had built with him to another woman “…She knew full well what the punishment would be. It was fine. It made no difference to her." However, Mary was worried that the consequence, a death penalty, would also affect her unborn child and would clean up the evidence to serve justice for her innocent child. In a patriarchal society, a woman.' 1917.
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