A Jury Of Her Peers, By Susan Glaspell

901 Words2 Pages

The signs are always there, so long as one looks for them. Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell and published in 1916, follows a group of men and women investigating the murder of Mr. Wright. The play, as well as the novel “A Jury of Her Peers”, is based on a murder investigation she wrote about in her younger years as a journalist. According to Merriam-Webster, a “trifle” is something of little value or importance. In this play, however, the trifles are what solve the murder- and ultimately cause the women to empathize with Mrs. Wright. The various trifles that appear in the play, such as the dirty state of the kitchen and the empty birdcage, are quickly dismissed by the men, only to be used by the women to empathize with Mrs. Wright as they realize the abuse she had been through. The investigation …show more content…

Wright, empathizing with her as the men dismiss anything that has to do with her emotional state. Another author, Linda Ben-Zvi, wrote in a journal adding further to this suffering of Minnie, “In the absence of the wife, the women, like quilters, patch together the scenario of her life and her guilt. As they imagine her, Minnie Foster is a lonely, childless woman, married to a taciturn husband, isolated from neighbors because of the rigors of farm life,” (Ben-Zvi 153). The women conclude that Minnie was miserable, having no close friends, no outside contact, with a husband who was harsh to her and would go so far as to kill her pet bird. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters decide to hide the bird as a final act of sisterhood, acting as a jury and nullifying the law, feeling it unjust to find her guilty of an unfair crime. Trifles are what make up our lives and they must be given special attention and care to make us all feel comfortable. The men in Trifles choose not to, instead judging the state of the kitchen and dismissing the women regarding the

Open Document