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Susan Glaspell's Trifles And A Jury Of Her Peers

Decent Essays

The play, Trifles, is about Mrs. Wright’s murder, while Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters figure out the reasoning and who committed the crime. The short story, “A Jury of Her Peers” is the same story but retold in a different fashion. This change in storytelling creates changes to the story by using thoughts and narration more often than only using conversation and action. The changes between Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” are shown by the changes in the opening, the characterization, and the descriptions of the stories.
To begin, the opening of the short story differs a lot from the play. The location in the opening is different between the play and the short story. In Trifles, the scene is set in “the now abandoned farmhouse …show more content…

Mrs. Hale, like other characters in the story, did not have her first name mentioned and was only referred by her last name. The play mentions that Mrs. Wright leaving her things out was familiar to Mrs. Hale, but no detail was given about that. The closest the reader get to understanding that is when Mrs. Hale mentions that she does not like leaving things unfinished when she redoes Mrs. Wright’s sewing. Because thoughts are harder to show in plays, it does not appear that Mrs. Hale has any worry about what Mr. Hale will say while he recounts what he saw. The short story improves the characterization of Mrs. Hale by showing more backstory and thoughts. Mrs. Hale is called Martha Hale multiple times during the story, which is more description of her character. The opening of the story begins with Mrs. Hale rushing out of the house to avoid having people wait on her. While this happens, she leaves her sugar half sifted, which would further explain the familiar feeling that Mrs. Hale has when she saw the bread sitting out and the men talked bad about the kitchen being left uncleaned. This bit of detail gives the reader a better understanding of why Mrs. Hale feels for Mrs. Wright and wants to help her. Additionally, Mrs. Peters has a few smaller detail changes compared to the changes Mrs. Hale had. Trifles was shorter and did not focus on characterization as much as the …show more content…

The house had a few minor details that were different between the play and the short story. The play describes the house as being a lonely place. There are descriptions of the items in the kitchen and the display of things that are left out. The short story gives some more details to describe the house. The house has more descriptions of how it is lonely. There is more emphasis on it being at the end of a lonely road with lonesome trees in the yard. The actions and thoughts are portrayed differently between the short story and the play. In Trifles, actions are used commonly, because speech and actions are the only ways to portray something. Thoughts are only able to be shown through a character’s dialogue or actions. Which goes into the descriptions given while trying to hide the canary. The actions are quick and are used to show how Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are thinking. The actions and thoughts are represented differently throughout “A Jury of Her Peers”. There are many details throughout the story that would be difficult to portray in actions, therefore these thoughts are unique to the short story. Using thoughts in the story allows Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters emotions to be show more while they are discussing what they find and while attempting to hide the canary. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Wright have many details throughout the story because they are a major focus of the story. In

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