Teaching the Narrative Technique Used in Susan Glaspell s and Virginia Woolf s Short Stories

Abstract

This study is an exploration of how to teach a narrative technique used by Susan Glaspell and Virginia Woolf, who are famous for writing about women’s lives in a patriarchal society. In order to pique students’ curiosity and help them appreciate the characteristics of these authors’ short stories, I chose “A Jury of Her Peers” and “The Legacy,” whose basic structure of narrative technique is similar to a detective’s investigation in terms of how important clues are read. In both pieces, the narrators repeatedly mention the same word or phrase such as “quilt it” and “Egypt”, which help students to understand the character’s mind or situation. In “A Jury of Her Peers,” while finding the meaning of the kitchen and quilts, students can follow the process of how women sympathize with Mrs. Wright’s difficult and lonely life caused by Mr. Wright’s ignorance. In addition, students can realize that in “The Legacy,” Egypt is not an ideal place for Angela, because she knows that wherever she goes, she will be put in the same situation; that is, manipulated by patriarchal ideology. In conclusion, this paper shows the effect of teaching female writers’ short stories that use a particular narrative technique, leading students to appreciate the literature and think about the subject.