A Jury Of Her Peers And Trifles Essay

    As a strong feminist, Susan Glaspell wrote “Trifles” and then translated it to a story called “A Jury of Her Peers.”  These works express Glaspell’s view of the way women were treated at the turn of the century.  Even though Glaspell is an acclaimed feminist, her story does not contain the traditional feminist views of equal rights for both sexes.

Glaspell’s attempt to rationalize the murder is evident in the title, “A Jury of Her Peers.” The point she is trying to make is that under the early twentith century judiciary system, it is her opinion that a woman could not get a fair trial. She is of course referring to the standard of the day that a jury be composed of only males. In fact, a jury composed of women, she conjects, would quite possibly acquit a murderess wife of all charges, given favorable circumstances, as the two women unofficially did in the story. After all, according to Glaspell, they are like her, of her, and can understand her plight.

Ben-Zvi, Linda. "'Murder, She Wrote': The Genesis of Susan Glaspell's Trifles." Theatre Journal, 44 (March 1992): 141-62.

She is most famous by her articles that she wrote on the Hossack Case. From this murderous conviction case she created a story line of similar actions yet with a few twists and turns along the way. Though there were many similarities and quite a bit of differences, Susan Glaspell wound up creating a spine chilling and infamous play that corresponds with history in the most adequate way for a woman writer in a world filled with little rights for those women who were willing to speak their

The most obvious difference between Glaspell’s two works is the title. The play is entitled “Trifles” whereas the prose version is called “A Jury of Her Peers”. Both titles draw the attention of the audience to different parts of the plot. “Trifles” highlights the “trivial household items” in the plot whereas “A Jury of Her Peers” accentuates the women’s roles and how they question what is morally right (Mustazza 489). Mustazza’s article provides background knowledge and a reason why Glaspell may have changed and retitled the prose version. Since women were in the final years of fighting for the right to vote in 1917, changing the title from “Trifles” to “A Jury of Her Peers” made the piece more contemporary and

In Susan Glaspell’s, “A Jury of her Peers”, it is the women who take center stage and captivate the reader’s emotions. Throughout the feministic short story, which was written in 1917, several repeating patterns and symbols help the audience to gain a deeper understanding of the difficulty of prairie life for women and of the bond that women share. The incredible cunning the women in the story demonstrate provides insight into the innate independence that women had even during days of deep sexual discrimination. In “A Jury of her Peers”, the hardships women of the early twentieth century must endure and the sisterhood that they can still manage to maintain are manifested as a mysterious, small-town murder unfolds.

“A Jury of Her Peers,” is a story about a farmer’s wife who is accused of murdering her husband. Referred to fundamentally as a writer, Glaspell's short fiction went to a great extent unnoticed until 1973 when her short story, "A Jury of Her Peers" was rediscovered. Despite the fact that the creator of forty-three short stories, Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers" is her most broadly anthologized bit of short fiction and is dependent upon a real court case Glaspell secured as a news person for the Des Moines Daily. The story, which she acclimates from her one-enactment play Trifles in 1917, has pulled in the consideration of feminist researchers for its medication of sexual orientation related topics. On its surface, "A

Twentieth century society places few stereotypical roles on men and women.  The men are not the sole breadwinners, as they once were, and the women are no longer the sole homemakers.  The roles are often reversed, or, in the case of both parents working, the old roles are totally inconsequential.  Many works of literature deal with gendered roles and their effect on society as a whole or on an individual as a person.  "A Jury Of Her Peers" and Trifles, both written by Susan Glaspell, are works of literature that deal with socially gendered roles during the early nineteenth century.  The two works are almost exactly alike in that the dialogue from "A Jury Of Her

Susan Glaspell’s one-act play, Trifles, weaves a tale of an intriguing murder investigation to determine who did it. Mrs. Wright is suspected of strangling her husband to death. During the investigation the sheriff and squad of detectives are clueless and unable to find any evidence or motive to directly tie Mrs. Wright to the murder. They are baffled as to how he was strangled by a rope while they were supposedly asleep side by side. Glaspell artfully explores gender differences between men and women and the roles they each fulfill in society by focusing on their physicality, their methods of communication and vital to the plot of the play, their powers of observation. In simple terms, the play suggests that men tend to be assertive,

Susan Glaspell’s one-act play covers issues regarding female oppression and patriarchal domination. The play still exists as a fascinating hybrid of murder mystery and social commentary on the oppression of women. When Margaret Hossack was charged with the murder of her sixty year old husband John, the man she had been married to for thirty three years. Killed by two blows to his head with an ax, John Hossack was thought to be a cold mannered and difficult man to be married to, but he didn’t deserve his

“A Jury of Her Peers” is a short story written by Susan Glaspell in 1917 illustrates early feminist literature. The two female characters, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, is able to solve the mystery of who the murderer of John Wright while their male counterparts could not. This short story had been adapted from Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles written the previous year. The play consists of the same characters and plotline as the story. In both works, Glaspell depicts how the men, Sheriff Peters and Mr. Hale, disregard the most important area in the house, the kitchen, when it comes to their investigation. In the end, the women are the ones who find clues that lead to the conclusion of Minnie Wright, John Wright’s wife, is the one who murdered him. Both of Glaspell’s female characters illustrate the ability to step into a male dominated profession by taking on the role of detective. According to Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, written by Lois Tyson, a reader-response critique “focuses on readers’ response to literary texts” and it’s a diverse area (169). Through a reader-response criticism from a feminist lens, we are able to analyze how “A Jury of Her Peers” and Trifles depict how a patriarchal society oppresses women in the early twentieth century, gender stereotypes confined both men and women and the emergence of the New Woman is illustrated.

From beginning to end, Susan Glaspell’s 1917 short story “A Jury of Her Peers,” has several repetitive patterns and symbols that help the reader gain a profound understanding of how hard life is for women at the turn-of-the-century, as well as the bonds women share. In the story two women go with their husbands and county attorney to a remote house where Mr. Wright has been killed in his bed with a rope and he suspect is Minnie, his wife. Early in the story, Mrs. Hale sympathizes with Minnie and objects to the way the male investigators are “snoopin’ round and criticizin’ ” her kitchen. In contrast, Mrs. Peters, the Sheriffs wife, shows respect for the law, saying that the men are doing “no more than their duty”. However, by the end of the story Mrs. Peters unites with Mrs. Hale in a conspiracy of silence and concealing evidence. What causes this dramatic transformation?

Susan Glaspell's short story, A Jury of Her Peers, was written long before the modern women's movement began, yet her story reveals, through Glaspell's use of symbolism, the role that women are expected to play in society. Glaspell illustrates how this highly stereotypical role can create oppression for women and also bring harm to men as well.

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.

First of all, Glaspell largely examines the repression of women in the 1900s. Women were highly looked down upon by men, and were seen mostly as housekeepers and child bearers, and were definitely not seen as intelligent people. The women in this play prove that the stereotypes against them are completely wrong. The men in this story are sent out to discover the details of a murder, while the women come along to gather some things for Mrs. Wright, who was accused of killing her husband. Throughout the play, the men mock the