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Susan Glaspell Trifles 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. In both of Glaspell’s pieces, the main character, Mrs. Wright, is accused of killing her husband. Minnie Wright was a farmer’s wife who didn’t have much contact with the outside world. The murder investigation took place inside her home. Three men are used to investigate the case and two women come with them. The women were no help to the men, but solved the case but also protected Mrs. Wright from any wrongdoing. The three men tried to find a motive, but the case remained unsolved. Susan Glaspell show’s in the two pieces how women are disregarded in investigative matters. Speaking with the females, Henderson and the other men make a key mistake that the women get their identity from their relationship to men. For example, Henderson tells Mrs. Peters that just because she is married to the sheriff, she is also married to the law so she is a reliable to obey the law. Mrs. Peters suggests that over the course, she has discovered a different aspect of herself that ties more closely to her experience as a woman than to her marriage to Mr. Peters. Mrs. Hale concludes, all women go through... ... middle of paper ... ...ing and themselves, they see that Mrs. Wright is worth their protection, which has several meanings for the women. They come together with her against the law; they also protect her by not telling her the truth about her ruined preserves. Mrs. Hale regrets not protecting Minnie Wright from isolation and solitude, and she rushes to her defense and protects Minnie Wright earlier by helping her now. The empowerment of women is the major factor in the two pieces written by Susan Glaspell. The male detectives couldn’t figure out what may have happened, but when the women try to bring all the pieces together, they are thrown aside and not substantive. Glaspell shows how the women acted as if they were detectives, much more than the men by being contributing to the fact that they solve the case, showing they were just as valuable as the men, and actually much more.
In A Jury of Peers by Susan Glaspell, the story revolves around the sudden death of John Wright. There are five characters that participate in the investigation of this tragedy. Their job is to find a clue to the motive that will link Mrs. Wright, the primary suspect, to the murder. Ironically, the ladies, whose duties did not include solving the mystery, were the ones who found the clue to the motive. Even more ironic, Mrs. Hale, whose presence is solely in favor of keeping the sheriff s wife company, could be contributed the most to her secret discovery. In this short story, Mrs. Hale s character plays a significant role to Mrs. Wright s nemesis in that she has slight feelings of accountability and also her discovery of the clue to the motive.
A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell is a story that reveals how women were subjected to prejudice in the early part of the 1900s. The story revolves around Minnie Wright, who was at the center of a murder investigation, and two other women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, who decide their own verdict and fate of Mrs. Wright. Even though the women were at the height of sexual discrimination, Susan Glaspell shows how a woman’s bond and intuition far surpass that of any man. The struggle the women faced throughout the story shows how hard it was for women to live in a male dominate world.
Up to this point, she had always thought that murder was murder and there were no exceptions to the law. Mrs. Peters says, “The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale” (278). Now, for the first time in her life, she sees that Minnie might have had justification for killing her husband. Minnie has every right to kill her husband. John Wright put her through enough misery and pain for a lifetime.
Men always have the tendency to judge too quickly. In “A Jury of Her Peers”, by Susan Glaspell, Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Peters, and Minnie Foster and Mr. Henderson are attempting to look for the motive of Minnie killing her husband. The story starts by Mr. Peters informing the group, except for Minnie, while she waits in jail, that when he stopped by the day before to give Mr. Wright a telephone because the couple lived really removed from the rest of the town, he asked Minnie where Mr. Wright was and she calmly answered that he had been hung the night before. Then, the men head upstairs to look at the crime scene, while the women sit around the kitchen to talk. Accidentally, the women figure out the motive of the murder by talking about kitchen supplies, “trifles” as the men call it. They decided not to inform the men to keep Minnie from being convicted because her husband was equally guilty as her. In the short story, “A Jury of Her Peers”, Glaspell employs strong details and details devices to argue that the purpose of the story is how Glaspell portrays men, that a person must not be judged based on off of the external appearance and that the little details in life always are important.
When the group arrives at the house, the difference between the men and the women is immediately apparent. The men approach the scene with confidence and seem to feel indifferent toward the situation, even though John Wright was a close acquaintance and neighbor. However, the women approach the scene with caution and hesitation. The sheriff gets right to business and asks Mr. Hale to “tell Mr. Henderson just what it was you saw when you came here yesterday morning” (189). Mrs. Hale gets nervous as her husband “often wandered along and got things mixed up in a story” (190). Mrs. Hale does not want Mr. Hale to say anything that might “make things harder for Minnie Foster” (190). This lets the reader know that Mrs. Hale already feels compassion for Mr...
The stories Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” are both written by Susan Glaspell. The main event in both Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” is a murder in the kitchen. Both stories cover the murder of Mrs.Wright’s husband. But, while both Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” are about the same story, and the characters are the same, the points of view differ in the two texts.
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
Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are often referred to as “housekeepers.” Within the very first paragraph, the scene is set and so is the image of each genders role. The short story begins with Martha Hale hurrying to leave her home, “her eye made a scandalized sweep of her kitchen. It was no ordinary thing that called her away--it was probably further from ordinary than anything that had ever happened in Dickson County. But what her eye took in was that her kitchen was in no shape for leaving: her bread all ready for mixing, half the flour sifted and half unsifted” (667). The kitchen is linked to a woman’s territory. The men make light of the situation by entertaining themselves making fun of the various items in Minnie Wright’s kitchen white attempting to find what she has requested from jail. Mr. Hale ridicules the women by stating, “women are used to worrying over trifles.” (671). He signifies that women tend to worry over things that do not hold value almost as if men have more important things to be worrying about then women do. Except, it is these ‘trifles’ that ultimately proved why Mrs. Wright killed her husband. Mr. Hale also makes a point to diminish the women by making them believe they would not know if they stumbled upon evidence because they are merely just women. He states “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it.” (672). It was easy for Glaspell to describe the gender roles in the book during this time period while women were going through these hardships. However, I wonder if both Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters contributed to the particular gender equality gaps outlined in the story between the men and women. Even the women saw certain tasks to be completed only by men. Glaspell wrote this story making the gender roles and difference clearly apparent in-between the men and women
Susan Glaspell’s short story “A Jury of Her Peers” is a repeated “Trifles”, but with more details. Both the play and the short story have the same plot and characters. Even though Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” is a more detailed Trifles, there are three aspect of differentiation between the story and the play, including exposition, character feelings, and story details.
I. Article Summary: Suzy Clarkson Holstein's article, “Silent Justice in a Different Key: Glaspell's 'Trifles'” evaluates the play Trifles and how the difference between the men in the play mirror how a woman's perspective is very different from a man's. Trifles is about two women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, who show up at a house with their husbands and the county attorney to investigate a murder. The entire time the men are looking for evidence to implicate the accused wife, Minnie Wright, of killing her husband. Meanwhile, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are there to gather up some items to bring Minnie Wright in jail. While doing so, the women uncover evidence that would prove the wife is culpable but decide to hide it from the men in the last moments of the play. Trifles is evaluated on how the women are able to come up with the evidence unlike the men because they didn't approach it like a crime scene but rather a home, “By contrast, the women arrive at a home. Although neither they or the men realize it, they too are conducting an investigation” (Holstein 283). Holstein also notes they are able to find evidence because they use their own life experiences to relate to the accused murderer, Minnie Wright as shown here; “But the women do not simply remember and sympathize with Minnie. They identify with her, quite literally” (285). Holstein finishes the article by noting the women decide to hide the evidence because of the solidarity they feel towards Minnie Wright; “From Mrs. Hale's perspective, people are linked together through fragile, sometimes imperceptible strands. The tiny trifles of life –a neighbor's visit, a bird's song, the sewing of a quilt –have profound reverberations” (287).
In "A Jury of Her Peers" and "Trifles", the characters' feelings are expressed in the exchange as well as communicated through their movements. The portrayal in "A Jury of Her Peers" makes these feelings more striking by misrepresenting the characters' activities which puts more stress on the sentiments that motivated the action. In “Trifles”, the line “We don’t know who killed him. We don’t know.” is conveyed by Mrs. Peters “By intensifying expression”. In the short story, the author has Mrs. Peters murmur the similar narrative madly like she was hysterical to accept as truth Minnie is innocent. Both extracts use the same arguments, but the piece from the short story has a more grounded enthusiastic effect basically in light of the misrepresented delivery of Mrs.
The strong women characters in Trifles allow for feminist discussion, but also question the classic gender roles present at any point in time. Through the crime committed by Minnie Wright, three women grow together and establish that justice for all is deeper than finding the culprit. Justice occurs in all things, in hiding the clues by Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, in the quiet dignity they both have by helping their friend, and by proving that women are capable of anything they are determined to
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. Trifles was written in only ten days. The true greatness of these works were not recognized until the 1970's.
Women have strived for years and have meant and surpassed many obstacles and hindrances. From this point, Minnie represents women who have traveled alongside their husbands in support to a world unbeknown to them that seems promising and fulfilling to only find nothing but oppression, isolation, hardships, tragedy, and misery. Hedges noted that the only way that Mr. Wright’s death, was discovered because Mr. Hale and his son were passing through on their way to town. Maybe if Minnie’s husband had a different mindset about how she lived, well-being, and her living conditions such tragedy would not have existed. We can all learn a valuable lesson from Susan Glaspell's “A jury of Her
In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles Mr. Wright’s murder is never solved because the two women in the story unite against of the arrogance of men to hide evidence that would prove Mrs. Wright as the murderer. The play Trifles is about the death of farmer Mr. Wright and how the town sheriff and attorney try to find evidence that his wife Mrs. Wright killed him. As the play progresses the men’s wives who had come along were discovering important pieces of evidence that prove the men’s theory but chose to hide from them to illustrate the point that their ideas should have been valued and not something to be trifled. The very irony of the play comes from its title trifles and is defined as something that isn’t very important or has no relevance to the situation that it is presented to. In this play the irony of the title comes from the fact that the men find the women’s opinions on the case trifling even though the women solve the crime which ends up being the downfall of the men as they would have been able to prosecute Mrs. Wright if they had listened which made the women’s opinions not trifling. Glaspell was born in an age where women were still considered the property of men and they had no real value in society in the eyes of men except for procreation and motherhood. This attitude towards women was what inspired Glaspell to write the play Trifles and to illustrate the point that women’s attitudes should be just as valued as men’s and to let women have a sense of fulfillment in life and break the shackles that were holding them only as obedient housewives. Trifles was also inspired by a real murder trial that Glaspell had been covering when she was a reporter in the year 1900. Glaspell is a major symbol of the feminist movement of l...