Similarities Between Trifles And A Jury Of Her Peers

Changes in “Trifles” vs. “Jury of Her Peers”

Although the play Trifles and the short story “Jury of her peers” are very similar there are some differences throughout the play and story from the characters, title, and the description. Susan Glaspell wrote both the story and play. Susan Glaspell wrote Trifles, her first play, was performed and published in 1916; the following year Glaspell wrote “A Jury for Her Peers” as a short story version of the same story in order to reach a wider audience. Both texts are early feminist masterpieces, and with this edition readers can read both versions of this classic story which challenges male prejudice.

The first difference is the characters, in “A Jury of Her Peers” and “Trifles”, the characters’ emotions are not only stated in the dialogue but are also

expressed through their actions. The narration in “A Jury of Her Peers” makes these emotions more vivid by exaggerating the characters’ actions which places more emphasis on the feelings that provoked the action. In “Trifles”, the passage “We don’t know who killed him. We don’t know.” is delivered by Mrs. Peters “With rising voice” (Speech 130). But in “A Jury of Her Peers”, Glaspell has Mrs. Peters whisper the same passage “wildly” as if she is frantic to believe Minnie is innocent (182). Both passages use the same words, but the passage from “A Jury of Her Peers” has a stronger emotional impact simply because of the exaggerated expression of Mrs. Peters in the descriptive narration of the story. The use of exaggerated actions makes the emotions of characters such as Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale seem more real to the reader and prompts the reader to experience exact emotions. Glaspell introduces precise wording into her short story version to bring out specific feelings from her characters. In “Trifles”, Minnie’s skirt is scrutinized by Mrs. Hale while in “A Jury of Her Peers” Mrs. Hale handles Minnie’s “shabby black skirt” with “carefulness” (Glaspell 178). By introducing more descriptive text, Glaspell makes Mrs. Hale’s compassion for Minnie evident to the reader. Glaspell’s new descriptive text in her short story empowers the characters with a broader range of emotions and this entices the reader to relate with the characters on a more personal level.

A Jury of Her Peers has the same characters as Trifles, but now the reader gets to hear what the characters were thinking and feeling. The narrative elaborates on how the characters met and even how they feel about one another. For example, on page 275 the writer explains how Mrs. Hale first met Mrs. Peters, “the year before at the county fair”. Mrs. Hale’s opinion of Mrs. Peters is brought to the surface on page 276 when the writer reveals that she felt Mrs. Peters “didn’t seem like a sheriff’s wife”. Whereas in the play Trifles, the reader is left with no insight of this nature since the dialogue is so central (all you know is what you see and hear). Feelings are left out of the play, and revealed in the short story. We get a better feel for the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Hale in the short story. Mr. Hale rushes her (on page 275) when he yells “Martha!”, and tells her to “Don’t keep folks waiting out here in the cold”. Her annoyance towards him shows on page 277 where she gets irritated with him for “saying things he

didn’t need to say”. She tries to give him a cross look, but is interrupted by the county attorney. Our suspicions of male dominance are confirmed on page 279 when the sheriff replies to the county attorney “Nothing here but kitchen things” and the writer reveals that his little laugh was for the “insignificance of kitchen things”. In the end, the two female characters Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters hide the evidence found in the kitchen that could have been used to convict the accused Minnie Wright of murder. The short story brings more of the readers’ imagination to work, whereas the play is pretty black and white, with little room for interpretation.
The second difference is in the titles, Trifles for the play and “A Jury of Her Peers” signals the reader to two different focuses between the play and the story. Even though both pieces of the play and short story are the same the title are different from one another. The title Trifles seems to tell us that this play is about particular objects, and indeed the play seems to focus on the objects that judge Minnie Foster. The play progresses cleanly from one part to another, each part being a particular thing that lets us know more about the events that are occurring. On the other hand, the title “A Jury of Her Peer” lets us know that the story will focus more on the characters of Mrs. Hale and Mr. Peters. Since the short story allows for more description, especially of the details of the characters interactions, it allows for more insight into the minds of the characters, as opposed to insight that the audience would gain by watching actors on stage. As told by the website Composition and Literature, The short story is named A Jury of Her Peers because Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter basically decided the fate of Minnie. They both decided not to turn in the evidence and, therefore, held a major role in the story. The name of the play is also very interesting. In the play Hale states that women are constantly “worrying over trifles.” Yet, these are the same trifles that if the men paid attention to they would be able to get plenty of evidence against Minnie. It is very ironic that the men are sarcastic towards the women during the whole play when the women solved the case.
The third difference in the short story and play is the description. “A Jury of her Peers” and “Trifles” are both written by Susan Glaspell. Susan Glaspell wrote many literature pieces that showed women’s role in society during the time of the piece she was working on. Although both of her writings tell about a story about a man, John Wright, that was mysteriously murdered in his sleep. The men in story are trying to solve the mystery, but look down on the women and their opinions that they had. In both story and play the women are the ones that end up finding most of the mystery solving clues. Also Mrs. Glaspell writes about women in society during that time also known as a time where feminism was active. Men could do anything and everything but as for woman during that time they could not because then men would not believe that the women can do a man’s job. As we can see from the story and play the men in both literature pieces look down on the women and what they say from what they believed happen in the murder, but the men may no mind to it. They believe that women are not smart enough too able to come up with those clues that they women were finding because men were smarter than the women as they thought. And that a women could not do a man type job. Because during this time women were the housewives. The men believed that the women should do the cooking and cleaning.
Susan Glaspell does a great job on showing the changes from the play and the short story. Even though the play and short story are similar there are quite a few changes throughout it from the characters, title and the description. There telling the same story in both the play and movie but she does change up a few things to give it a different meaning.