Compare And Contrast Trifles And A Jury Of Her Peers

In 1916, Susan Glaspell wrote the play Trifles. The following year, she wrote it as the short-story “A Jury of Her Peers.” The story and play are about a woman who is charged with her husband’s murder and a group of people including neighbors, the town sheriff, and the county attorney. Although Trifles was changed from a play to a story, it and “A Jury of Her Peers” can be compared and contrasted in many ways including the details, the formatting, and the text itself.

Trifles is a play revolving around a murder. In Trifles, there are details, just not as many as there are in “A Jury of Her Peers.” The details in Trifles are lacking, not because Susan Glaspell did not put details in it, but because the details are in the stage directions and the stuff the narrator says. However, the small lack of details is compensated for by the level of suspense the play builds. Throughout the entire play, the reader is left on edge wondering if [insert name here] murdered her husband, only to find out in the end that she did. Plays generally build suspense, but not because it is a play. The suspense is built by the interaction between the characters and watching the plot unfold. Another thing that differs Trifles from “A Jury of Her Peers” is the formatting of the play. The play is formatted like plays typically are. All the background is at the beginning, followed by dialogue, and mixed with

stage ques. The reason for that is because, most importantly, it is a play. Moreover, the dialogue also contributes to the difference in formatting. In short stories, the dialogue is integrated into the text, but in plays, the dialogue gets its own line for every piece spoken. Also, the some of the dialogue has an action for what the character is going to do next to some of their names. In addition to that, there is the actual text itself. The way things are worded from the play to the short story are a little different. For example, in Trifles, “[insert quote here]” is said this way versus in “A Jury of Her Peers” it is said like this: “[insert quote here].” Also, the vocabulary from play to story varies. Furthermore, the words leading up to the dialogue are slightly varied. For example before [insert character name] says “[insert quote]” in Trifles, the lead-up text is a little different than in “A Jury of Her Peers.”
A Jury of Her Peers” is the short-story version of Trifles.

Going back to the lack of details in Trifle, “A Jury of Her Peers” is more detailed overall just by virtue of the fact that it is a short story. It being a short story allows more room for details than a play would. In addition to the amount of details, the suspense level is slightly different. Due to the amount of details in “A Jury of Her Peers,” this gives the reader more to imagine whilst reading the short story thus building suspense. Additionally, the formatting of “A Jury of Her Peers” is different than that of

Trifles.
However, there are a significant amount of similarities between the two. The details, for example, might not be as plentiful in Trifles, but even without all the details, the same point of murder and who did it is conveyed throughout both it and “A Jury of Her Peers.”
When [insert names here] went inside [insert name here]’s house, they had no idea that the woman they were proud to call their friend killed her husband in cold blood. While the men were looking at the surface level, [insert names here] were unintentionally tampering with evidence until they realized that [insert name here] was a murderer. As soon as they realized their friend was a murderer, they did everything in their power to keep her from getting prosecuted. And little did they know that they would be short storied a year after the original murder was committed.