Feminism at Its Best

"A Jury of Her Peers" opens with debate encompassing Minnie Foster Wright, who is in prison on suspicion that she killed her spouse by strangling him. Mrs. Wright's story is told by implication through a discussion between Martha Hale, whose spouse uncovered the grouping of John Wright, Mrs. Diminishes, the wife of the neighborhood sheriff. The sheriff asks Mrs. Robust to go with them to the Wright's house so she can stay with his wife while the men explore the homicide scene. Put together by condition, the ladies structure a prompt bond as they start assembling some of Minnie's possessions to accumulate to her prison cell. Presuming that there is nothing in the kitchen aside from "kitchen things," the men start their examination in the upstairs of the house and in an outside animal dwelling place. Left alone in Minnie's kitchen, in any case, the two ladies start uncovering their pieces of information about Minnie's conceivable intention in executing her spouse. Step by step, Mrs. Sound and Mrs. Diminishes start perceiving insights about Minnie's life that escape the notice of their spouses. They perceive Minnie's forsaken, separated presence, her broken furniture, the once-over kitchen where she needed to cook, and the battered clothes she was compelled to

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

Something that was interesting was the titles Glaspell gave each story was very unique. Glaspell named the short story, “A Jury of Her Peers” because Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter decided Minnie Wright’s fate. Also, the women decided not to turn in the evidence that could seal Minnie’s fate.

In “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell, Minnie Foster Wright is the main character, even though the reader never sees Mrs. Wright. The story begins as Mrs. Hale joins the county attorney, Mr. Henderson; the sheriff, Mr. Peters; Mrs. Peters; and her husband in a “big two-seated buggy” (188). The team men are headed the Wright house to investigate Mr. Wright’s murder. Mrs. Peters is going along to gather some belongings for Mrs. Wright, who is currently being held in jail, and Mrs. Hale has been asked to accompany Mrs. Peters. As the investigation is conducted throughout the story, the reader is given a sense of how women were treated during this time and insight into why the women ultimately keep evidence from the men.

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 refers to the people who are judging Minnie Wright for her crime.  In the story, Mrs. Hale and the sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peters, are the peers whom the author is referring to and who are judging Minnie Wright.  These women know Mrs. Wright and their views of her are altered by the fact that she is their neighbor and also a woman.  The women feel sorry for Mrs. Wright because her husband was emotionally abusive to her.  They do not pay attention to the fact that she did indeed kill someone.  If Susan Glaspell had really wanted women to be treated just like men, she would have written the story so that Minnie Wright had a normal trial.  Minnie Wright should have gotten a trial with a jury consisting of people who did not know her or anything about her past.

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

“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.

One critic, Leonard Mustazza, argues that Mrs. Hale recruits Mrs. Peters “as a fellow ‘juror’ in the case, moving the sheriff’s wife away from her sympathy for her husband’s position and towards identification with the accused woman” (494). Though this is true, Mrs. Peters also comes to her own understanding. What she sees in the kitchen led her to understand Minnie’s lonely plight as the wife of an abusive farmer. The first evidence Mrs. Peters reaches understanding on her own surfaces in the following passage: “The sheriff’s wife had looked from the stove to the sink to the pail of water which had been

As in the case of most, if not all, good allegorical stories, the primary impact of the tale is strongly influenced by the author’s detailed characterization of the setting, as well as the characters’ feelings and passions. Certainly such is the case in Susan Glaspell’s story “A Jury of Her Peers”. Here the reader sees a richness of characterization and setting that is elusive at first reading, but becomes clearer as the story evolves. In the final analysis, it becomes clear just who the jury is and the outcome of their collective verdict. It is by the use of allegorical and metaphorical rhetoric that the tension of the story is maintained so very well.

In Susan Glaspell’s Trifles(1961) the County Attorney, George Henderson, is investigating the murder of John Wright. The County Attorney is joined along side a witness, Mr Hale, his wife, the Sheriff, and his wife. As the story goes on, you learn through dramatic irony that it was indeed Mrs. Wright who murdered John Wright. Many literary works have clear defined gender roles, Glaspell use’s these gender roles to show the mistreatment and representation of the women in the play.

Susan Glaspell created a significant scene with a short story based on a play written in 1916. A Jury of Her Peers reveals a setting of Dickson County in March, when a farmers lonely wife allegedly murdered her husband and a team of investigators and their wives assembled to search for motive. Women of the time were oppressed and striving to find their way in society while continuing to uphold their family name and producing acceptable households . America was surging ahead to World War I and women that had to hold the home front together found themselves in new situations that brought stress and anguish. Women were gaining rights to work, rights to vote and opportunities to become better educated alongside their male counterparts but had a lengthy journey ahead in standards of equality. A woman at the turn of the century typically would not have been as educated as Glaspell and especially not as well written. She gained success on levels from writing published short stories to plays and traveling. She shared success with her husband throughout their lives. Her work was varied and Encyclopedia Britannica explains, her work showed “…a wide stylistic range, from psychological realism to Symbolism and Expressionism” (1). Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of Her Peers, exhibits how feminism created a new mindset for women that had formerly yielded to clichés of females in the home, workplace and community, however covering another woman’s cause to murder pushes characters to

“A Jury of Her Peers” tells the story of two men and their wives discovering the details of a murder scene. While the men search for blatantly obvious clues around the scene, the women notice small details that piece together the story of why Minnie strangled her husband John in his sleep. The story revolves around the gender roles that the women were forced into. These roles helped them to understand what Minnie was going through and what happened to her husband. The irony in the differences between the women’s roles and their husbands is what solved the case.

    In Susan Glaspell’s short story “The Jury of Her Peers”, a kind lady, Mrs. Wright, is arrested for the alleged murder of her husband. During the investigation, Martha

Susan Glaspell’s Trifles is a dramatic play with satirical content that points out gender differences and how stereotyping affects perceptions of duty, justice, and law. Glaspell wrote Trifles in 1916, a time in America where women were consistently expected to be housewives and nothing more. Women’s limitations were clearly a spark of inspiration and reason for Glaspell to write Trifles, criticizing society with feministic intelligence. Therefore her critic in itself proves the problematic world that women are entangled within and how inaccurate the stereotype of a women can be. But there is an undeniable weight to Glaspell’s Trifles, being set in a 1916 a time where women could neither vote nor sit on a jury, the story gives way to feministic empowerment. The male dominated culture left women with only the task of the household and prey to hands of men’s tyranny. Glaspell’s Trifles expresses women are just as great as their counterpart if not superior.