Preview

"Trifles" and "A Jury of Her Peers" Susan Glaspell

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
761 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
"Trifles" and "A Jury of Her Peers" Susan Glaspell
"Trifles" and "A Jury of Her Peers" Susan Glaspell
The “Trifles” and “A Jury Of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell are very similar in the way that they both have got the same basic plot . However , one of them that is the trifles is a play and the other one is a short narrative story. According to me the story was easier to read and more clear to the reader as to how the various events were taking place but the play was difficult to understand as it was open ended it was made not very clear and also a play can be best understood when it is performed on stage as there are various other elements in a performance like multimedia-sound and lighting and not just the text which can be used to show various important aspects .

“A Jury of Her Peers” is longer and more in detail as it is describing a story and not showing or using any visuals as in case of the “trifles” . There has been a clear mention of the fact that the women are considered inferior in the society in both the play as well as the story. Men do not consider the actions of the women as important and only consider those actions as trifles. For example . when the sheriff reaches up into the cupboard and and his hand became sticky ,the women sadness that her preserved fruit had frozen .Instead of recognizing all the hard work of the lady the sheriff exclaims , “Well , can you beat the women ! Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves . From the very first part women have been shown as having timid personalities as they entered the door very slowly and close near the door close to each other as if they are an entirely different part of the society which is inferior to men . Another instance was when the women looked closely at the quilt and are made fun of after which they even feel abashed by the men . Ultimately it was these small things that lead to the finding of the important evidence by the women which confirmed that Mrs Wright was the murderer. Glaspell wants to emphasize the fact that the actions

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Glaspell’s story is from the perspective of Martha Hale, who has been called to the home of Minnie Foster Wright, a neighbor, that has been accused of killing her husband. While you may focus on the storyline of the woman killing her husband as I did at first, once you reread the story you can grasp the message of women banning together to protect once another. Mrs. Hale responds to the county attorney of his comment on the state of Minnie’s home that, “There’s a great deal of work to be done on a farm…….Men’s hands aren’t always as clean as they might be.” (690). While the attorney is being scornful of the state of home, Mrs. Hale has a quick retort in the defense of her neighbor. Just as in Reddy’s song stating “I am woman, hear me roar/In numbers too big to ignore” (lines 1-2). In other words, women stick together and by doing so we have a strong voice. Both Glaspell and Reddy show how woman are always quick to defend our sex. It could be that we have a better understanding of each other and in that will extend our understanding to the most unlikely of…

    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In “A Jury of her Peers” by Susan Glaspell, the story uses symbols to show the life of a young woman in 1917, whose life was sweet and pretty and ends lonely, messy, and broken. The location of the Wright homestead symbolizes the loneliness and emptiness Minnie Foster Wright endures. Glaspell tells us the Wright farm “looked very lonesome this cold March morning. It has always been a lonesome looking place.”…

    • 160 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    A short play is usually filled with a theatrical energy of diverse anthologies. The time allotted may be only ten or fifteen minutes, so it must be able to capture and engage the audience with some dramatic tension, exciting action, or witty humor. Just as in a short story, a great deal of the explanation and background is left for the reader or viewer to discover on their own. Because all the details are not explicitly stated, each viewer interprets the action in their own way and each experience is unique from someone else viewing the same play. Conflict is the main aspect that drives any work of literature, and plays usually consist of some form of conflict. In “Playwriting 101: The Rooftop Lesson,” Rich Orloff explores these common elements of plays and creates an original by “gathering all clichés into one story and satirizing them” (Orloff as cited by Meyer, 2009, p. 1352).…

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    12 Angry Men: Overview

    • 1553 Words
    • 7 Pages

    1. Each Act takes happens in the same place. The entire play takes place in the jury room of a New York City court of law in 1957 during a very hot summer afternoon. It is a large, dull, minimalistic room with three windows in the brick wall which the skyline of New York City can be seen. There is also a wash room and lavatory off the jury room. There is a large, scarred table in the centre with twelve chairs around it. There are pencils pads and an ashtray on the table. There is also a water cooler in the room with plastic cups. The dullness of the room may signify and provide a mood for the act and is evident in the interactions between the jurors. The Twelve jurors are all seemingly awkward and uneasy towards each other once they enter the room.…

    • 1553 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Trifles” is a classic feminist play about two women’s secret discovery of a woman murdering her husband. “A Jury of her Peers” is another edition of this story. During the 1830’s, the “Temperance Movement” which was the very first American reform campaign to emphasize the brutality of domestic violence. Insisting that domestic violence was the direct influence of alcohol the reformers believed that survival of the alcoholic’s wife was dependent on her rights to control her own earnings, gain custody of her children, and to seek a divorce on her own and none of these were options at that time for most women.…

    • 359 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One such example is when the attorney general Henderson tells Mrs. Peters that because she is married to the sheriff, she is married to the law and therefore is a reliable follower of the law. Mrs. Peters' response "Not--just that way," is very interesting in that it suggests that over the course of the play, she has found a different aspect of her identity, perhaps and an empowered woman and not just a housewife. Another interesting quote from Glaspell’s play is when Mrs. Hale states that women "all go through the same things--it's all just a different kind of the same thing." While Minnie Wright’s dealt with her particular situation differently than either Mrs. Peters or Mrs. Hale, they all seem to reject male dominancy to some degree. This concept of female identity and solidarity has a huge impact on the outcome of the play, as Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters decide, despite breaking the law, to conceal the evidence they uncovered that could be used to convict Mrs. Wright for the murder of her…

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “A Jury of Her Peers” is a short story created Susan Glaspell, that demonstrates differences in how genders perceive things. This story takes place in Dickinson County, Iowa in the early 1900s. The story consists of the murder of John Wright, and the arrest of his wife for the murder. The whole story occurs the day after the murder, when the sheriff, the sheriff’s wife, the county attorney, and a couple that live nearby, visit the Wright’s house to figure out what actually happened the day before. This story makes it sound as if people see things differently based on gender, but in my opinion, the main reason for their difference in how they see things is prejudice and sexism. It was not necessarily that the women in this short story see so…

    • 240 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Glaspell uses general stereotypes of the time periods gender specific roles. Leonard Mustazza very helpfully points out the difference between the genders and how the characters react to their position (Mustazza 1). Throughout the play, the male characters steers the readers into believing that a woman’s place is at the home, where she is spending most of her time cleaning and taking care of her husband. One knows this because the county attorney remarks, “I shouldn’t say she had the homemaking instinct” (Glaspell 746) after he was through surveying the kitchen. He implies that a women’s duty is to make sure that the home well taken care of. Also, the males expects the women to be submissive and to have the same values as their husbands. For…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Men and women do not always see things the same way, and often time’s, men consider themselves as superior to women because of their way of thinking. In “Jury of Her Peers”, the men, Mr. Peters, Mr. Hale, and Dr. Lloyd, are trying to solve the murder case and leave the women to their “trifles” in the kitchen while they work on the case. The men in the story seem to think that they are the only ones who are smart enough to solve the case or to know what evidence is, and in the end it is this misconception that allows the women to hide the evidence they find from the men. Susan Glaspell uses these gender…

    • 1423 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The significance of the title of the play, “A Jury of Her Peers” is fitting because it is about a woman that is going to be judged for the murder of her husband by her peers. How her life was with him was going to give her motive for her actions. The play, titled “Trifles”, written by Glaspell is also significant to the story because it explains how a small thing like the bird being killed relates to Mrs. Wrights life. The bird was a literary metaphor. The bird singing brought happiness to Minnie’s house and life. When her husband strangled the bird he had also strangled Minnie by not allowing her to make friends outside the house. “Trifles”, is a better title for when the story was written, but not so much for today’s times, because this…

    • 787 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Women are generally guided by emotion, and Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are no different. When discussing certain situations with a woman, it is likely that emotion will come into play at one point or another. In “A Jury of Her Peers” the women are no different; they stick together and struggle with the knowledge they have to decide whether or not to reveal evidence of motive. When two women discuss the motive for murder, they take seriously into account the emotions involved when it is a fellow woman that is to be convicted. They come to the conclusion that silence after a “noisy” happiness is definitely a bad thing.…

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Even though the symbolism Glaspell uses in “A Jury of Her Peers” represents the oppression of women by men that use of symbolism provides the readers the freedom to interpret the story in their own way. The broken stove, the broken birdcage, and lastly the bird all symbolize the completely different aspects of the personalities and overall relationship between Mrs. and Mr. Wright. The death of Mr. Wright sets Mrs. Wright free, even if she is in…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Examples Of Social Norms

    • 1456 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The play begins with a criminal investigation taking place at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Wright. Mr. Wright was found dead in their bed with a rope around his neck, with his wife being the largest suspect. Mr. Henderson, the county attorney, Mr. Peters, the sheriff, and Mr. Hale, a neighbor and friend to Mr. Wright, gather around discussing the matter, while Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale stand off to the side, patiently waiting to be a help to personal connection if the men see fit (1362). Throughout the story, the men make light of any problem or important matter that the women may have, or have to offer. They initially notice how dirty and untidy Mrs. Wrights home is, and because this is very unordinary for the women of that time period, 1916, that made Mrs. Wright that much more suspicious. The men also bring up that though Mrs. Wright is held for murder, she is too busy worrying about her perseveres, an unimportant matter to any of the men (1365). Glaspell connected her title with the theme of her story with a comment made by one of her male characters, Mr. Hale, "Well, women are used to worrying over trifles". As though any problem, or worry a women may have is unimportant and exaggerated compared to any "real" issue, that a man might have. Near the end of the story, the women feel sympathetic towards Mrs. Wright for they know how it feels to be a women and they feel that perhaps her actions were justified, for her husband did strangle her beloved bird. Though they have gathered much evidence to close the case, the men do not feel as if their input will be worthy of solving the…

    • 1456 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Defending the Play Trifle

    • 467 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the play, Trifles by Susan Glaspell, is about a murder mystery of Mr. Wright. The men; the court attorney, sheriff, and Mr. Hale, a neighorbor to the Wright family, and the women; the sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peter and Mrs. Hale, solve the mysery in two very different ways. The men show up at the house as a crime scene, and only focusing on the bigger, important elements of a murder mystery. As Mr. Hale was trying to explain everything he saw in the house that morning of Mr. Wright’s death, he said “She was rockin’ back and forth. She had her apron in her hand and was kind of – pleating it (1154)”. Meanwhile, Mr. Hale was looking for Mr. Wright, Mrs. Wright was kind of subtle and said you can’t. Mr. Hale was confused. All she said then was he has been murder. All three men go upstairs to talk and investigate the body. One the otherhand, the women approach the house as a home, and focusing on the trifles, meaning small detail or unimportant, such as baking mess, unfinished sewing, and unwashed pans & cleaning. As the women are worried about Mrs. Wright’s trifles in the house the men like to make fun of them. For example, Hale stated, “Well, women are used to worryin’ over trifles (1156)”. Mrs. Wright loved making preserves as her fruit froze in the freezer and made a big mess that the two women were worried about, so the sheriff said “Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin’ about her perserves (1155)’. In society, as you can see, men tend to ingore the women’s world, blind to the truth before their eyes.…

    • 467 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The word trifles means a thing of little meaning or value according to the free online dictionary. In the play we see a lot of trifles; to me these trifles are the material things that pretty much helped solve the case in the play, for example; the mess in the kitchen, the dirty towels and the fruit. Mrs. Peter (to the other woman): oh, her fruit; it did freeze. (To the lawyer.) She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire’d go out and her jars would break. Sheriff (rises): well, can you beat the woman! Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves. County Attorney: I guess before we’re through she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about. Hale: well, women are used to worrying over trifles page 961. To the man the quilt and the cage of the canary are also trifles, to them those things have such little value that they even laugh at the woman when they talk about the quilt Mrs. Hale: it’s a log cabin pattern. Pretty isn’t it? I wonder if she was goin’ to quilt it or just knot it? Sheriff: They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it! (The men laugh and the women look abashed.)…

    • 654 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays