Compare And Contrast Trifles And A Jury Of Her Peers

In the early 1900's Susan Glaspell wrote many works, two stand out, the play "Trifles" and the short story "A Jury of Her Peers". Trifles was written in 1920, while "A Jury of Her Peers" was written the following year. The true greatness of these works was not recognized until the 1970's. In the short story "A Jury of Her Peers" a woman named Minnie Wright is accused of the murder of her husband. Minnie Wright is a farmer's wife and is also isolated from the outside world. There is an investigation that takes place in the home of the murder. There are three men that are involved on the case and two women accompany but are not there to really help solve the murder. These two women will solve the murder and protect Mrs. Wright of any wrongdoing.

In, “A Jury of Her Peers” it shows the Minnie Wright’s life before she was married. The young Minnie was a lively girl who loved singing in the church choir. Mrs. Hale spoke of how well she dressed and of how pretty her voice was when she sang. Her voice was easily picked out of the choir. Her happiness in youth is in great contrast to the lifestyle she had to mold into after marrying John Wright. The descriptions from both the men and women in this story describe John as a cold, selfish and unsocial man who ended up dragging his wife into his own lifestyle. This smothering among other events is what eventually caused her to snap and change. In the contrast, Minnie Wrights role in “Trifles” play’s is important, even though she is not involved as much in the play. Her absence is because, at the time the play starts, she is detained in jail while Sheriff Peters, the county attorney, the Sheriff's wife, and Minnie's farming neighbors, the Hales, try to connect the dots to determine what exactly occurred the night before at Minnie's house. Learning that Mrs. Wright has changed makes it simpler for the reader to image the state of her image. A woman who no longer wears pretty clothes nor participates in events of interest is likely to allow for signs of aging to begin to show up and for her own beat-down emotions to take over her looks. We can assume that Minnie is a woman who has a

In this story, readers understand and observe the action through Mrs. Hale, the neighbor of the woman suspected of killing her husband. All the action of the story takes place within Mrs. Hale's view. The story opens in Mrs. Hale's home, continues with a buggy ride to the Wright farm, and concludes in the main floor of the Wright farm house. The men in the story go out of the house and upstairs, but since Mrs. Hale stays on the main floor, the reader is only aware of what she sees there. The reader knows what Mrs. Hale is thinking. Her actions and words are related, but not her feelings. For example, in this sentence: "'Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs. Hale,' agreed the sheriff's wife, as if she too were glad to come into the atmosphere of a simple kindness,"(Glaspell 570), Mrs. Peter's gladness is assumed rather than stated because Mrs. Hale can see the other woman acting "as if" she were glad but cannot know that she was glad. Because Trifles is a play instead of a prose story, it does not have a conventional "point of view" as such. The common terms of third/first person-omniscient/limited don't apply, because the audience only sees what is presented as action and dialogue. In that sense, the point of view could be said to be third-person limited, since