Susan Glaspell wrote two different forms of literature that have basically the same plot, setting and characters. This was during a period in which the legal system was unsympathetic to the social and domestic situation of the married woman. She first wrote the drama version “Trifles” in 1916 and then the prose fiction “A Jury of Her Peers” in 1917. The main difference was the way the prose fiction version was presented. Glaspell effects emotional change in the story with descriptive passages, settings and the title. The prose fiction version has a greater degree of emotional penetration than the drama version.
Although the dialogues have basically been unchanged from the dramatic version to the prose fiction version, Glaspell has passed her message more effectively in the narrative. While Glaspell uses the characters or actors to vocalize the emotions of the story from the play “Trifles”, she makes the reader feel the emotions in “A Jury of Her Peers” by including descriptive passages to accompany the dialogue in her narration. The opening paragraph of the story was a description of Mrs. Hale’s unkempt kitchen “… which will later serve as a point of comparison with the major scene of the story, Mrs. Wright’s kitchen” (Mustazza). This opening description helps readers foreshadow why Mrs. Hale could easily identify with Mrs. Wright. “Through her brief opening description of the landscape Glaspell establishes the physical context for the loneliness and isolation, an isolation Minnie inherited from and shared with generations of pioneer and farm women before her” (Hedges). The description of the road to Mr. Wright’s farm also helps reveal to readers Mrs. Wright’s “geographical isolation” (Hedges). Glaspell provides the short story v...
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Mustazza, Leonard. "Generic Translation and Thematic Shift in Susan Glaspell's 'Trifles' and 'A Jury of Her Peers'." Studies in Short Fiction 26.4 (Fall 1989): 489-496. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jenny Cromie. Vol. 41. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.
Orit, Kamir. “To Kill a Songbird: A Community of Women, Feminist Jurisprudence, Conscientious Objection and Revolution in A Jury of Her Peers and Contemporary Film” Law and Literature Vol. 19, No. 3 (Fall 2007) (pp. 357-376). Print.
Wright, Janet Stobbs. "Law, Justice, and Female Revenge in 'Kerfol,' by Edith Wharton, and Trifles and 'A Jury of Her Peers,' by Susan Glaspell." Atlantis 24.1 (June 2002): 299-302. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 132. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.
Susan Glaspell was an American playwright, novelist, journalist, and actress. She married in 1903 to a novelist, poet, and playwright George Cram Cook. In 1915 with other actors, writers, and artists they founded Provincetown Players a group that had six seasons in New York City between 1916-1923. She is known to have composed nine novels, fifteen plays, over fifty short stories, and one biography. She was a pioneering feminist writer and America’s first import and modern female playwright. She wrote the one act play “Trifles” for the Provincetown Players was later adapted into the short shorty “A Jury of Her Peers” in 1917. A comparison in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” changes the titles, unfinished worked, and
Glaspell, Susan. "A Jury of Her Peers." Literature and Its Writers. 6th ed. Boston, New York:
The central theme in “A Jury of Her Peers” is the place of women in society and especially the isolation this results in. We see this through the character, Minnie Foster and her isolation from love, happiness, companionship and from society as a whole. Not only does the story describe this isolation but it allows the reader to feel the impact of this isolation and recognize the tragedy of the situation.
Kastleman, Rebecca. "A Silenced Woman." American Theatre Feb. 2010: 19. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.
Susan Glaspell wrote many literary pieces in the early 1900s. Two, in particular, are very similar in theme, which is the play Trifles and the short story “A Jury of Her Peers”. The Trifles was written in 1920 and “A Jury of Her Peers” was written in 1921, a short story, adapted from the play. Susan Glaspell was born in Davenport, IA July 1, 1876 as a middle child and the only daughter. In college, she wrote for her school paper, The Drake, and after Glaspell graduated, she started working for the Des Moines News. She got the idea for the play and short story, after she covered a murder about a woman on a farm.
If your husband had just been murdered, would your first concern be of your jar of preserves bursting? The short story “ A Jury of Her Peers” and play “Trifles” share an abudance of similarities. The setting in both takes place during winter in Dickson County, Nebraska. This is a rutal town located in the farm belt of the United States in the early part of the 1900’s. Glaspell craftfully uses the discussions between the characters and symbolism in both stories to bring focus to and reject how males viewed and treated females in rural America in the 1900’s.
Grose, Janet L. “Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and ‘A Jury of Her Peers’: Feminine Reading and
...mpletely dependent upon men. Playwright Susan Glaspell cleverly causes the reader to question the way that women and men are viewed in society. The women in Trifles, though they were overlooked by the men, solved this case while the men failed to do so when they were supposedly in charge. In failing to recognize the women’s ability to contribute to their work the men succeed in causing the women to unite, giving them the real power and knowledge to solve this mystery. All the while the women are moving a little closer together and moving forward toward their rights.
In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles a man has been murdered by his wife, but the men of the town who are in charge of investigating the crime are unable solve the murder mystery through logic and standard criminal procedures. Instead, two women (Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters) who visit the home are able to read a series of clues that the men cannot see because all of the clues are embedded in domestic items that are specific to women. The play at first it seems to be about mystery, but it abruptly grows into a feminist perspective. The play Trifles written by Susan Glaspell can be considered a revolutionary writing in it its advocacy of the feminist movement.
...g to conceive to her audience by proving all opinions matter no matter whose it is. By looking in the past the audience can see that the story shows some significant similarities to the time it was written in. Glaspell shows women how a united cause can show the world that women should have just as much rights as men do. The theme of the story is expressly told through how and why Mr. Wright is murdered and Mrs. Peters transformation at the end of the story. Film adaptations that changed the title of Trifles to A Jury of Her Peers probably did it to appeal to the male audience and include a double meaning of how a jury can hold bias even with evidence directly given to them.
The short story “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell was first published in 1917. Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” is a short story version of her one-act play Trifles. Glaspell claimed that “A Jury of Her Peers” and Trifles are based on her experience as a court reporter. When she was in Iowa, she covered a story on the murder of a sixty-year-old farmer, John Hossack. John Hossack’s wife, Margaret, had claimed that she had been asleep when her husband was killed. She was then tried for his murder. Critics agree that “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell is her greatest story, which demonstrated the roles of women of her time.
Glaspell spent more than forty years working as a journalist, fiction writer, playwright and promoter of various artistic. She is a woman who lived in a male dominated society. She is the author of a short story titled A Jury of Her Peers. She was inspired to write this story when she investigated in the homicide of John Hossack, a prosperous county warren who had been killed in his sleep(1).Such experience in Glaspell’s life stimulated inspiration. The fact that she was the first reporter on scene, explains that she must have found everything still in place, that makes an incredible impression. She feels what Margaret (who is Minnie Wright in the story) had gone through, that is, she has sympathy for her. What will she say about Margaret? Will she portray Margaret as the criminal or the woman who’s life has been taken away? In the short story Minnie Wright was the victim. Based on evidence at the crime scene, it is clear that Minnie has killed her husband; however, the women have several reasons for finding her “not guilty” of the murder of John Wright.
Women have lived for generations being treated as nothing more than simple-minded creatures who were able to do little more than take care of their husbands and maintain a home, but that idea is dangerous. The years of abusing women by withholding their rights, belittling them, and keeping them in the home was sometimes detrimental to not only the female sex, but to the males sex as well. Susan Glaspell is the author of the short play “Trifle” , in which Mrs. Wright, the housewife of a local farmer, is being investigated for the murder of her husband. As a local county attorney, sheriff, and male neighbor scour the house for motive and proof that Mrs. Wright killed her husband, the men spend much of their time criticizing the housekeeping skills of Mrs. Wright and belittling every woman in the play for their simplicity. Their assumptions about the female sex, prevents them from seeing the crime scene for what it really was. Meanwhile, Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, and Mrs. Hale, the neighbor man’s wife, are able to relate in many ways to the loneliness and loss of self that Mrs. Wright felt while spending her days alone tending to her home and husband.
The jar of preserves, the broken birdcage, and the re-stitched quilt pieces lead to the connection leading Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters to the joint decision about guilt and innocence. Susan Glaspell illustrates how women can share experiences and become empowered. Most women value their lives as women and see themselves as man’s equal. The female characters pay attention to the more insignificant clues and quickly uncover Mrs. Wright’s motive for the murder. Supposedly based on a true murder story, Susan Glaspell's Trifles does more than just rework a tale of murder; it reveals the features of the society that produced the crime. The one-act play Trifles utilizes characters, dialogue, symbolism, language, and themes to present real-life problems that have faced nations for many years. The drama illustrates the issues of equality, male domination and the empowerment of women. The themes of gender differences and isolation shown through the ways the roles of men and women are viewed and by the male dominance over women. In contrast, it is the women who give legitimacy to the evidence, as they empathize with Mrs. Wright who, in their final assessment, may have flipped out as a result of ongoing domestic violence. Through the course of the play, the men fumble around in the dark, unaware of the incriminating evidence that surrounds them. The author blends
Devising the perfect murder is a craft that has been manipulated and in practice dating back to the time of the biblical reference of Cain and Abel. In the play, “Trifles” exploration is focused on the empathy one has for a murderer who feels they have no alternative from their abuser. As a multifaceted approach, the author Glaspell gives her audience a moral conflict as to whether murder should be condemned based on the circumstances rather than the crime. Presenting Mrs. Wright as the true victim of the crime of domestic abuse rather than a murderer gives Glaspell a stage which shows her audience the power of empathy.