Critically analyzing stories based on the elements of fiction can give readers a more in-depth perspective on the authors true meaning to what is written. In Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers", irony, theme, and plot and structure are applied well throughout. When analyzing this story, it can not be judged on how appealing or entertaining it is, but whether or not it fully achieves its central purpose and how significant that purpose is. In this story every element mentioned has worked together to bring this tale to life.
Susan Glaspell was an American playwright, novelist, journalist, and actress. She married in 1903 to a novelist, poet, and playwright George Cram Cook. In 1915 with other actors, writers, and artists they founded Provincetown Players a group that had six seasons in New York City between 1916-1923. She is known to have composed nine novels, fifteen plays, over fifty short stories, and one biography. She was a pioneering feminist writer and America’s first import and modern female playwright. She wrote the one act play “Trifles” for the Provincetown Players was later adapted into the short shorty “A Jury of Her Peers” in 1917. A comparison in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” changes the titles, unfinished worked, and
Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” was wrote in the early nineteenth century. This was also the era that women found it very difficult to stand out and become recognized for being a successful and intelligent individual. Women were mere objects being banished to the kitchen and forced to serve their husbands and families with a smile on their face. “A Jury of Her Peers” distinctively points out how the clues of a murder mystery is solved through the eyes of a woman. The sources listed below are helpful in relating the story to the era it was wrote in and how poorly women were treated.
Our future is greatly affected by our present actions. “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell casts a situation identical to this one present in Mrs. Hale’s life. Mrs. Hale, now a grown woman, struggles with regret triggered by the past decisions made over the course of twenty years. Throughout the short story, we observe Mrs. Hale as she realizes her regret and distinguish what thoughts and actions are a result of her feelings.
"A Jury of Her Peers", written in 1917, is a short story by Susan Glaspell, loosely based on the 1900 murder of John Hossack. It is seen as an example of early feminist literature because two female characters are able to solve a mystery that the male characters cannot. They are investigating the murder of farmer John Wright. The men tell the women to just busy themselves around the house while they go and do the “real work.” Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff's wife, use their deductive skills and knowledge about housework to conclude what had happened to Mr. and Mrs. Wright, also known as Minnie Foster. A skill the men couldn’t use or take into account.
The stories Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” are both written by Susan Glaspell. The main event in both Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” is a murder in the kitchen. Both stories cover the murder of Mrs.Wright’s husband. But, while both Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” are about the same story, and the characters are the same, the points of view differ in the two texts.
In the play, the scene serves as an introduction to the characters and the setting. This is done in a way that is more like a list than the fluidity of a story. Throughout the opening, people are referred only by their last names, except Mr. and Mrs. Wright’s first names are mentioned in the play. The lack of setting the scene in the way that a play does changes the way the short story introduces the characters. In “A Jury of Her Peers”, the characters are introduced throughout the opening, rather than listing them off at the beginning. Also, the characters are more commonly referred to by their first names. The first sentence begins with “when Martha Hale opened the storm-door and got a cut of the north wind” (567), while the play never mentioned Mrs. Hale’s first name. Other characters’ first names are also used more often throughout the story. The conversations between the characters in the play and the short story are similar but also have small changes. Because, Trifles is a play, thoughts can only be portrayed through actions or speaking, so there is a lot of speaking to get the plot going. After the scene is set, it begins with the characters discussing what Mr. Hale saw and what
In the book "live from death row" by Mumia Abu Jamal in the section "jury of peers?" (98-99) The quote stated by Justice Blackmun "there is reason to believe that his trial and sentencing proceedings were infected with racial prejudice" meaning the Dissenting Justice Blackmun voted not to execute William Henry Hance due to a statement on what a juror had said on hearing racial slurs. This case was basically infected from the start on the evidence of the case. The purpose of this section of reading was to analysis the meaning of what "Jury of peers" is, where in a case jury of ones peers(equal) include a wide of different race, gender, etc. and to ensure that the jury had no previous knowledge relevance to the case. In William Henry case the
Men and women have different characteristics that might give them the supposition of superiority. “A Jury of Her Peers,” Mrs. Peters is described as “small and thin and [without] a strong voice, which means she doesn’t look like a sheriff’s wife” (190). The narrator describes Mrs. Peters as a weak lady. Usually women look more feminists and they don’t have strong voice like men. On the other hand, Mr. Peters, better known as the sheriff, is described as “the kind of man who could get himself elected sheriff- a heavy man with a big voice, who was particularly genial with the law-abiding…” (190). Mr. Peters has power not only because he is a man but because he is a sheriff, so his community seems him with authority. People expect that her wife
Housewives are known to be married ladies who tend to their family unit and their spouses needs as their standard occupation. Unfortunately, not all ladies are cheerful housewives and this could prompt a few genuine and miserable circumstances. Particularly if something somehow managed to turn out badly, for example, a pet being killed or their spouse abandoning them for another. This is the subject in the works of "A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell and "Sheep to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl. Here we have two housewives being blamed for killing their spouse in light of such circumstances. Both lady endeavor to appear as blameless as could be expected under the circumstances by putting on the "terrified and helpless wife" act before police.
In, “A Jury of Her Peers” it shows the Minnie Wright’s life before she was married. The young Minnie was a lively girl who loved singing in the church choir. Mrs. Hale spoke of how well she dressed and of how pretty her voice was when she sang. Her voice was easily picked out of the choir. Her happiness in youth is in great contrast to the lifestyle she had to mold into after marrying John Wright. The descriptions from both the men and women in this story describe John as a cold, selfish and unsocial man who ended up dragging his wife into his own lifestyle. This smothering among other events is what eventually caused her to snap and change. In the contrast, Minnie Wrights role in “Trifles” play’s is important, even though she is not involved as much in the play. Her absence is because, at the time the play starts, she is detained in jail while Sheriff Peters, the county attorney, the Sheriff's wife, and Minnie's farming neighbors, the Hales, try to connect the dots to determine what exactly occurred the night before at Minnie's house. Learning that Mrs. Wright has changed makes it simpler for the reader to image the state of her image. A woman who no longer wears pretty clothes nor participates in events of interest is likely to allow for signs of aging to begin to show up and for her own beat-down emotions to take over her looks. We can assume that Minnie is a woman who has a
Throughout history, a plethora of different classes of people, cultures, and races have undergone some form of prejudice. Partiality against women has occurred, and continues to occur, in America. Susan Glaspell, author of "A Jury of her Peers," depicts a story of a close-knit community in the process of solving the mystery of a man's death, thought to be caused by his wife. In the investigation of Mr. Wright’s death, the women helping to search through the Wright farm for clues pointing to evidence of Minnie Wright’s murder of her husband were thought of as useless, when in reality, the women were solely responsible for finding and understanding Mrs. Wright's motives for murdering her husband. Glaspell uses imagery and a woman's point of view to depict how a woman may feel bound by limits set by society--- a feeling most easily understood by women who share the same perception of life.
The drama Trifles and the short story “A Jury of Her Peers”, are both written by Susan Glaspell. Both texts are about the same story. A woman is imprisoned for murdering her husband, and the authoritative men are searching her house for the motive. Two other women in the house find evidence and decide to hide it. The texts have different ways to convey thoughts, and similar ways to show actions.
In "A Jury of Her Peers," Susan Glaspell illustrates many social standards women experienced at the turn of the century. She allows the reader to see how a woman's life was completely ruled by social laws, and thus by her husband. Glaspell also reveals the ignorance of the men in the story, in particular the sheriff and the county attorney. I think some examples are rather extreme, but in Glaspell's day, they would have probably been common.
Glaspell, Susan. “A Jury of Her Peers.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2013. 490-504. Print.