Justice In Susan Glaspell's Trifles

In the novel Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey it is revealed that justice and the law are not the same things. The law can be defined as a set of rules and regulations to be followed and justice can be defined as just behaviour or treatment. The law is meant to ensure that justice is always present but this is not always the case as seen in Jasper Jones. In the novel, the law is not used for justice but is rather used for prejudice, in order for characters of the novel to find justice they must do so outside of the law and to find justice you have to take the law into your own hands.

The literal meaning of justice is ‘the quality of being morally right and fair’ but there are various theories which can be considered and compared since they all define justice in a different way.

Although “A Jury of Her Peers” and “Trifles” are similar in plot, Mustazza’s article, “Generic Translation and Thematic Shift in Susan Glaspell’s ‘Trifles’ and ‘A Jury of Her Peers’” highlights the differences and similarities between the two. Mustazza’s article may help aid readers to understand the differences between Glaspell’s two works and provide understanding as to why Glaspell may have changed the genre and form of the plot. “Trifles” is a dramatic play whereas “A Jury of Her Peers” is prose fiction. While some differences may be seen on the surface, other differences will need to be inspected closely. Mustazza’s article may help one to understand Glaspell’s works by providing analysis and additional perspectives on both “A Jury of her Peers” and “Trifles”.

Throughout the drama, Mrs. Wright and the canary share many similarities. For example, Mrs. Hale, the wife of Mr. Hale, describes that Mrs. Wright “was kind of like a bird herself—sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery” (185). Overall, the quotation describes Mrs. Wright as a gentle and submissive woman, the type of woman society expected her to be. In addition, although Mrs. Hale compares her to a bird in a favorable manner, she also defines Mrs. Wright as a woman that is fragile and uncappable of providing for herself, another social stereotype that women were subject to. Ultimately, however, the rigid social expectations for women served to reiterate their role in the home and to further confine them to the homestead itself, especially as society typically objectified and trivialized women, celebrating the conforming wife while condemning women to have their wings clipped by society’s standards. In this way, beyond her personality, Mrs. Wright becomes even more synonymous with the canary, an estranged creature confined behind bars as an aesthetic spectacle that is unable to sing an independent song.

Mr. Wright is not frightened by the consequences of his actions towards Mrs. Wright and her belongings. The County Attorney thoroughly examines the relationship between Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Hale. Mrs. Hale explains how she has “ . . . not seen much of [Mrs. Wright] of late years” (Glaspell 4) which reveals how isolated Mrs. Wright is. Mr. Wright does not think twice about keeping his wife secluded from everyone because he thinks Mrs. Wright is incompetent in expressing her feelings towards him. The dead canary is found by the women and they debate whether Mr. Wright was a factor in the death of the bird. Mrs. Hale replies to Mrs. Peters that “ . . . Wright wouldn’t like the bird--a thing that sang. [Mrs. Wright] used to sing. He killed that too” (Glaspell 9). Despite his wife’s feelings, Mr. Wright believes that he can get rid of anything to satisfy his happiness.

Wright's life in their hands to do with what they will.  Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale find the evidence needed to convict Minnie Wright and they suppress it.  They were women who understood the plight of loneliness and the death of a beloved pet.  Mrs. Hale understood that Mr. Wright was a hard man to live with and she knew that he had not only killed Mrs. Wright's bird but he had also killed the real Minnie Foster, the girl she had been.  The men in the story, Sheriff Peters, Mr. Hale, and the young unmarried County Attorney, see only surface things.  They believe that the motive for John's murder lies in the bedroom or in the barn.  The men flounder around ignorantly searching for something they will never find because they can not think as Minnie Wright did.  If the women had told them about the discovery of the dead bird, they would probably laugh and say that the women needed to go back to their quilting and their jellies.  The ragged and uneven sewing that suggests a misplaced state of mind in Minnie Wright would also have been laughed at.  The men wanted to find something concrete that would easily convince an all male jury but they never would.  To men, dead canaries are dead canaries, they would never read into it what Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Peters, and Mrs. Wright did.

Fletcher’s literary allusion to Shakespeare’s Henry VI defines the underlying social circumstances that define the validity and invalidity of crimes of passion that occur within certain legal

In Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of Her Peers, she writes a clue seeking story of how the sheriff will find enough evidence to charge Minnie Wright of the murder of her husband John. The story starts off with Mr. Hale telling his story of how he went over to the Wright’s only to learn Mr. Wright was dead. The story then focuses on the two women Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, as they discover more and more evidence in the kitchen while they are gathering things to take to Minnie Wright in jail. Glaspell uses character conflict, and plot to help guide the reader into a story about moral conflict.

Susan Glaspell presents a play “Trifles” showing that in some situations people may be forced to change or even conform to some ideas which they consider moral as opposed to legal in the eyes of law. Should people choose what is morally right over what is legally right? In Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” the issue of morality and law is clearly illustrated and will focus on the factors that make Mrs. Peters shift her views at various points in the story. Mrs. Peters continually seems to change her mind over her legal and moral views as she is swayed to support morality or legality as a result of her sympathy towards Mrs. Wright who seems to have lived a life

John Wright is everything but right to Mrs. Minnie Wright. Minnie was a fortress of goodness, optimism and happiness. John takes destructive blows to this fortress. The blows came in the form of isolation. He emotionally and sublimely cages Minnie. Mrs. Minnie Wright like most women reaches her breaking point. Minnie reaching her breaking point leads to the killing of John. John is the catalyst to his own demise.

The “Ethics of Justice” deal with large, sweeping, abstract concepts about the ideals of Justice without regard to relationships. A view that wrong is wrong no matter what the circumstances really. The “Ethics of Justice” encourage “impartial duty” and “portray the moral agent as someone who listens to reason, figures out the right thing to do, and does it” (96). They admit that they are holding Mrs. Wright for murder and they are looking for “a motive; something to show anger, or--sudden feeling” (101). However, they fail to actually search the place where the woman would have spent most of her time. The Ethics of Justice, just as the men in the play, are largely unconcerned with personal details. The men are likely looking for something very large in their search, rather than the slow-building motive that the women piece together. They fail entirely to notice anything out of place about the kitchen and chalk anything that they do notice up to Mrs. Wright being “not much of a housekeeper” (99). In short, the men are concerned with the “Why” of the case but only in the large terms of what they would consider, impetus for murder. They are concerned with finding a reason that makes sense to them but not necessarily to the, in all likelihood, female murderer. It seems that they are attempting to determine “What would cause another person to murder an innocent man?” rather than

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.

In 1917, Susan Glaspell rewrote her 1916 Play, “Trifles,” into a short story called “A Jury of her Peers.” They both depict a group of townspeople investigating the murder of Mr. Wright. It is suspected that Mrs. Minnie Wright, his wife, is the murderer. As the story goes on, the women in the group figure out she committed the murder but decide to hide evidence to keep her from being convicted. Susan Glaspell wrote a short story titled “A Jury of her Peers” mirroring a previous play that she had written titled “Trifles.” There are slight changes and variations between these two that make them surprisingly different. By comparing the characters point of view, the way the story is introduced, and the plot we can point out key differences between

Even with only assumptions, the “comprehension” of Wrights treatment of Minnie “makes the murder totally understandable”, meaning that without any true evidence, the audience and characters find Minnie guilty of and justified in committing murder (Alkalay-Gut 6).

Susan Glaspell's Trifles explores the classical male stereotype of women by declaring that women frequently worry about matters of little, or no importance. This stereotype makes the assumption that only males are concerned with important issues, issues that females would never discuss or confront. The characters spend the entirety of the play searching for clues to solve a murder case. Ironically, the female characters, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, uncover crucial evidence and solve the murder case, not the male characters. The men in the play, the Sheriff, County Attorney, and Hale, search the scene of the crime for evidence on their own, and mock the women's discussions. The women's interest in the quilt,