The struggle between the male and female gender has long seen its differences throughout our American history. Prior to 1848, women did not have a voice or a valued opinion; they were simply thought of as unseen and unintelligent. It took nearly 72 years before the 19th amendment to our Constitution was signed into law, granting women the right to vote (Infoplease). During the early part of the twentieth century, the duties and structures of women’s lives would have predisposed them to approach a problem from a different angle than that of men and even today, despite the significant changes in women’s lives and opportunities since mid-century, women’s responsibilities and concerns tend to remain somewhat distinct from men’s (Holstein).…show more content… The reason the Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are able to un-cover the different puzzle pieces left by Mrs. Wright of the murder is because they empathize with her as a woman and as a wife. They identify with her, quite literally (Holstein). In her first lines, Mrs. Hale defends the accused woman’s housekeeping from the county attorney’s attack. Mrs. Hale also mourns the loss of Mrs. Wright’s preserved fruit, remembering her own hard work during canning season. Again, to the men, this empathy is trivial and harmless, but it is the emotional entrée for the play’s outcome (Holstein). Because they identify with her and because they see her as an individual and not simply a participant in a criminal action, they uncover the key evidence to the case. Their perspective impels them imaginatively to relive her entire married life rather than simply to research one violent moment (Holstein). Women, by nature, are more sensitive and in tune with their feelings. They look further into why a person may have done a bad thing verses where the men only care about guilt or innocence and cannot sympathize with the accused, especially not in this play because the accused was a woman. The county attorney, Mr. Peters and Mr. Hale never attempt to identify with Mr. Wright or even consider him as a distinct individual with specific behaviors. Instead, they view him as they do his wife, Mrs. Wright, an abstraction. He is the victim of a crime and she is
