Susan Glaspell's Trifles Vs. A Jury Of Her Peers

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.

     The other view that Glaspell shows in this play is a sympathy that the reader grows for the women. How they are forced to follow the men. Like when they are asked to get close to the fire, they do it even though Mrs. Peters

“A Jury of Her Peers” and “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell are the same stories, but in different literary formats. These stories are based on the stereotype of women in society in the early 1900s. The roles of women as anything other than homemakers were downgraded. The stories showed how men, of that time, never considered just how hard women worked doing all of the household chores every day. These stories showed women who were treated like children and have no meaning in the workforce or anything else besides serving the men. “A Jury of Her Peers” and “Trifles” share the same plot; however, “Trifles” is a play and “A Jury of Her Peers” is a short story. This makes the same story be told differently because of the genres of literature. A play is represented in a theatrical performance or on film. A short story is a story with a fully developed theme but significantly shorter and less elaborate than a novel. It was easier to read the play rather than read the short story. However, the short story gave more content towards the story Glaspell was telling her readers by showing the point of view of both the men and women, while “Trifles” just explains the story.

“A jury of her Peers” and Trifles are works of literature. In these works, they depict the murder of Mr. Wright. The men accuse Mrs. Wright to the murder of her husband, however are they are trying to find evidence to prove this. Both works are loosely based on the murder of John Hossack, which Glaspell reported on while working as a news journalist for the Des Moines Daily News. Hossack's wife, Margaret, was accused of killing her husband. However, Margaret argued that an intruder had killed John with an axe. She was convicted but it was overturned on appeal. In the play Trifles and the short story “A Jury of her Peers”, Susan Glaspell conveys how she transforms the play to the short story by change in the plot, the characters, and the themes of Female vs men and freedom

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”.

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.

“You’re Convinced there was nothing important here…Nothing that would—point to any motive?” (Glaspell, pg. 5, 1908). In 1916, Glaspell worked for Des Moines daily news as a reporter where she later met her husband George Cook who was a play director. Together they wrote and produced plays, two of which are Trifles and Jury of Her Peers which are based off a crime scene she encountered while being a reporter. Glaspell’s plays are on the feminist side focusing on the roles women are forced to play in society and their relationships with men. Motive is the overall theme found in both versions of Glaspell’s story and is evidenced through the Wright’s relationship, the anger portrayed in various ways, and finally, regret found in Mrs. Wright.

“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

“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?

Firstly, the play “Trifles” is a genre more focused on the items throughout the book that lend itself to continue chapter by chapter using different items to enhance the story. In “A Jury of Her Peers” Glaspell uses more or less the same dialogue from the play but intensifies it with the story focusing on characters such as Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. The short story adds a more descriptive insight into the story allowing us as readers to dive deep into the emotions and minds of its characters. The play does not do this as well due to the fact that it was written so that the actors and actresses on stage can portray the emotions and help develop the story through there acting. In the play, the items are the things that judge Minnie Foster whereas the story uses Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters to interpret the objects and tell the story that way. The other main difference is that the male characters have more depth in the short story than in the play.

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

Susan Glaspell was a prolific author, playwright, journalist and novelist in the early 1900s. Early in her career as a reporter she wrote many articles including the newspaper coverage of a murder trial known as the Hossack Case when she worked for The Des Moines Daily News in Des Moines, Iowa. This murder trial was a much publicized event in which a woman, Margaret Hossack, was accused of murdering her prosperous husband on the couple’s farm in Des Moines. In these newspaper articles dated from December 1900 through April of 1901, Glaspell gave an account of the murder trial where Margaret was eventually convicted of murdering her husband, John Hossack. Shortly after covering the trial, Glaspell quit journalism and started writing novels, short stories and plays. Two of which were based on her coverage of the Hossack Case. One was a one-act play titled “Trifles” and the other was a short story entitled “A Jury of Her Peers”.

Mrs Susan Glaspell was a writer during the end of XIX and first half of the XX centuries. Two of her great works were “Trifles” and “Jury of Her Peers”. The two of them have similar plots and characters, we can even say that they are the same the main difference that we notice is that one is a play (Trifles) and the other one is a short story (Jury of Her Peers). Analyzing both of them more in deep another differences were found like the point of view, on one side, one of them is third person limited and the on other one is third person objective. In addition, the characterization are way different.