Category: A Jury of Her Peers

The expression “feminism” existed for about 200 years fist signifying “the nature of females” and from that point foreword has been characterized in a vast number of ways. Today, woman’s liberation can be chartered by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as a noun signifying “the convection that people ought to have equal rights.” Woman not only lack the “necessities” men carry, but the treatment of men towards woman prove the societal abuse woman face daily. In Heminway’s “Hill Like White Elephants” and Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” woman naturally allow men to control and manipulate their choices causing emotional damage within themselves.

Looking at “Hills Like White Elephants” from a feminist point of view allows an explanation of the weakness within females through examples. This short story involves an American man with a young woman, Jig, at train station. With an ongoing discussion, beginning normal, but soon turning into the unspoken trouble of the “operation.” The beginning of the short story begins showing the use of feminism almost immediately. “‘What should be drink?’ The girl asked.” (Hemingway 785) Although, simple as this statement seems, she clearly portrays submissive characteristics to her dominant “boyfriend.” Whereas Minnie in “A Jury of Her Peers” appears almost opposite. Minnie Foster, a questionable figure and suspected killer in ‘A Jury of Her Peers’ invests the greater part of her energy in her home not on the grounds that her significant other attempts to support her, but since her association with her husband, or any other individual in fact lacks a relationship.

Although both stories involve lonely woman controlling their future based on a man’s choice, “A Jury of Her Peers” takes a different approach. The result of the husband’s treatment causes a more sinister outcome. Minnie invests the greater part of her energy there doing housework or cultivating while her husband works. The depiction of Minnie’s home described ‘Lonesome’ further outlines Mrs. Wright’s isolation. Minnie Foster, then again, wants to follow an alternate part of the clique of family life as she endeavors to finish her local obligations, for example, ranch work, cleaning the house, and weaving, in spite of acting despondent and desolate. During the examination of Minnie’s kitchen, Mrs. Hale opens the pantry to discover demolished products of the soil Mrs. Hale that Minnie had been ‘concerned’ that the fruit would ruin ‘when it got so chilly the previous evening’ (Glaspell). Directly after this revelation, the gathering was strolling around Minnie’s rumpled kitchen and discovered some messy washcloths, which causes the sheriff, Mrs. Diminish’s significant other, to infer that Minnie was ‘a bad maid’ (Glaspell). Minnie’s ‘stresses’ about her organic product while she goes through the night in prison shows she feels regretful that she was unable to finish her household obligations and delineates that woman associated to consistently be aware of these obligations to avoid being seen unladylike. Jig only wanted to accomplish anything that may result in pleasing the American man. Whereas she also depends on him to order the drinks due to her lack of the Spanish language. Within the first few lines of the story, Jig already proved that the man’s dominate roles allows for change within her actions and her dependence on him. The two characters carry out a conversation through the text, but nothing resides from this. Neither of them truly communicates with each other, highlighting the space within the two. They continuously talk but listening or understanding the others point of view became impossible.

Hemingway portrays his female characters with crude knowledge, allowing for undeniable society-forced conduct examples to enlighten female attributes without condemning their respectability. In ‘Hills Like White Elephants,’ the manner in which Jig imparts passes on her socialization as a young woman. Through taking a gander at the improvement of male-female correspondence, pursuers can accomplish new understanding into Jig’s character rather than what they regularly see as shortcoming, and they can find what all considered plans to accomplish in her trade with the American. Nonetheless, one ongoing theme that the narratives share is the way ladies right now are dealt with or expected to act by others. Within “Hills like White Elephants’ Jig allows the American man to manipulate her. Any action made to cause satisfaction within the man, the woman happily committed this demonstration. Unlike Hemminway’s approach, Glaspell composed a story in which the treatment within her husband caused his fate. In both piece’s of literature, the man controlled the actions of the woman in a way. Both stories resulted in the woman feeling dispirited and lonely.

In spite of the two ladies feeling miserable and alone, they yet expect to keep up the perspectives and obligations of ‘the cult of domesticity’ and feel regretful when they can’t satisfy those hopes. Woman during these time periods relied upon accommodating, devout, unadulterated, and handle the entirety of the household parts of family life. The allowmeant of control and manipulation within woman affecting their choices clearly summarized “Hills like White Elephants” and “A Jury of Her Peers.” Feminism exists within almost any piece of literature, but the awareness of its existence rarely comes along. Looking at these pieces through a feminist point of view allowed new perceptions of these works along with many others.

“A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman both have plots of very different natures. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a mentally disturbed woman is taken into an isolated house to recover. In “A Jury of Her Peers”, a woman is blamed for killing her husband. However, one common message that the stories share is the idea of how women are treated and expected to behave by other people during this time period. “The Yellow Wallpaper” describes the life of an unknown woman who is lonely and lacks contact with anyone other than her husband and this causes her to have an obsession with the type of wallpaper that’s in her bedroom. In addition, in “A Jury of Her Peers” Minnie Foster, also known as Mrs. Wright, is a woman accused of killing her husband (Mr. Wright). The story follows two other characters as well who are housewives, named Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. These two housewives find out about Mrs. Wright’s obsession with her pet that had died. Both of these stories describe the lonely and obsessive habits of the women who are isolated and the guilt they feel when they cannot live up to their expectations for their society. It describes them even though it may seem like the main characters are treated differently than those around them. This is because one woman was babied by her husband and Mrs. Wright was ignored by her husband.

Even though the husband of Mrs. Wright in “A Jury of Her Peers” and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” had different ways of motivation for the way their wives were treated, both women still ended up feeling lonely and depressed. The narrator’s husband (John) in “The Yellow Wallpaper” brings his wife to the faraway house. He does this so she could be cured from her “nervous depression” and “hysterical tendency” that he talked her into because he was a physician (Gilman, 992). In addition to that, he also says to her that she is “not allowed to work” until she is feeling ok again (Gilman, 992). Even though John demonstrates the certain types of biased tendencies by men during this time, he really thinks that these certain methods will be able to cure his wife. Unlike the narrator in “A Jury of Her Peers”, Mrs. Wright, who was suspected of murder, spends most of her time in her house. This is not because of her husband helping her all the time, it’s because she doesn’t have a good relationship with anyone else besides him.

The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” describes Mrs. Wright’s house as a “lonesome looking place” (Glaspell, 568), even though Mrs. Wright does spend a lot of time farming or doing other housework when her husband is at work. The fact that Mrs. Wright home is described as “lonesome” shows Mrs. Wright’s isolation. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” John, the narrator, makes sure that his wife does not have any human contact with anybody and this includes their own child. When the narrator asked John if his cousin could visit, his wife remembers that “he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow case as to have those simulating people about me now” (Gilman, 994). By saying this, he is comparing his wife’s cousins to the fireworks and this helps illustrate how dangerous he thinks they will be on her. In “A Jury of Her Peers”, the woman at Mrs. Wright’s house to talk about her husband and how he was “a hard man” and describing how he was working all day and there was “no company when he did come in” (Gilman, 577). Even though John’s treatment may have been over the top, he really thought that he was curing up his wife. The narrator’s confinement made her feel very upset and lonely, she admits to “cry at nothing, and cry most of the time” (Gilman, 995). In “A Jury of Her Peers”, the women’s kindness and description of Mr. Wright to his wife recommends Mrs. Wright’s feelings of being lonely is a result of her husband being very disregardful.

Both women were feeling sad and lonely, but they are still expected to have the attitude of feeling bad when they cannot live up to the expectations. Women during this time period were expected to follow all the aspects of family life. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” makes these expectations clear when she says “John says the worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad” (Gilman, 992). When the narrator describes the guilt for not listening to her husband’s orders, this illustrates that she feels that she needs to be obedient and not have an opinion, even when it comes to her own health. On the other hand, Mrs. Wright feels that she needs to work hard to complete her responsibilities like farming, cleaning up the house, and knitting, even though she may feel unhappy and lonely all the time. During the search through Mrs. Wright’s kitchen, Mrs. Peters opens up the cupboard and sees ruined fruit and says to Mrs. Hale that Mrs. Wright was “worried” that it would get spoiled “when it got so cold last night” (Glaspell, 571). Right after they found this out, the whole group started walking around Mrs. Wright’s kitchen and saw that she had some washcloths that were really dirty. This caused Mrs. Peter’s husband, who was the sheriff, to say that Mrs. Wright was “not much of a housekeeper” (Glaspel, 572). Mrs. Wright worrying about her fruit shows that she feels bad that she couldn’t complete the responsibilities she was supposed to get done. In addition, it shows that women during this time period were taught to always be informed of their duties so they wouldn’t be looked at like they are not acting like a female by people such as Mr. Peters.

The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” focuses on her responsibilities, which shows up later in the story. She starts to notice that the wallpaper in her room becomes haunted and she tries to tell John how she feels about the situation but John ends up silencing her with his “stern, reproachful look” (Gilman, 997). After that, he goes on to tell her that she needs to be better. Specifically, he says “for my sake, and for our child’s sake, as well as your own” and then his wife “said no more” on the subject because she didn’t know what to say (Gilman, 997). The narrator then makes the scene silent due to John mentioning their child and the look that he gives to her. This illustrates the importance of her role as a housewife and mother and how her guilt makes her feel like she cannot fulfill those duties due to her being sick. Even though Mrs. Wright and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” are sad and lonely, they are expected to be normal and obedient housewives.

Mrs Wright is an example of social isolation while the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is an example of physical isolation, both of these women start developing obsessions that are unhealthy during this time period because they don’t have any contact with the world outside of them. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is only allowed to see her husband, making her develop a weird relationship with the bedroom wallpaper. In the story, she says that she will “watch it always” (Gilman, 998). She was afraid of the room at first but then grows to like the room “because of the wallpaper” (Gilman, 998). The narrator then changes the feelings of the wallpaper to represent the relationship between humans and objects. On the other hand, Mrs. Wright is not physically isolated from other people because she has a husband and neighbors around her, but she does feel like she is removed from them socially. Mrs. Wright develops a friendship with her pet bird because she never talked to anyone else. This shows the narrator’s relationship that she had with the wallpaper because it serves as a replacement for having relationships with other people.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is in a desperate need for togetherness makes her really believe that there is a woman that is “creeping about behind that pattern” because she sees her out of all her windows (Gilman, 996). Her and John were supposed to leave the house the night before and before that, she gets very desperate to find the woman that was outside and she was willing to tear apart the entire room. In her journal, she says that “I pulled and she shook”, which she did in order to try and free her (Gilman, 1000). This describes the two of them working together and this shows that the narrator can see this woman as a person who can keep her company, resulting in a lack of contact with real people. Mrs. Wright has a crazy reaction when she found out her husband killed the bird and she said she “choked the life out of him” by killing him the same way the bird was killed (Glaspell, 579). Mrs. Wright’s relationship with her bird and the friendship the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” has both illustrate how women can cope with the different types of isolation and how far they can end up the relationships are always threatened.

Comparing the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Mrs. Wright in “A Jury of Her Peers” makes it easier to understand their acts they were brought to at the end of the stories. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was a loved wife and mother and Mrs. Wright was very lonely and felt ignored. Even though both women had different types of backgrounds, they both ended up losing their common sense at the end of the stories. Their acts of despair show that it may have not been their fault that they were forced to have friends in weird places or commit acts of madness, but also the guilt of living up the expectations that society had for them.

When an awful crime is committed like murder nobody suspects the doting housewife to be the one that did it. Decades ago women were consistently diminished when they were in the presence of males. Men went to work and women were submissive housewives that cooked, cleaned and did everything for their husbands. This is a representation of gender roles. The theme of gender roles is common throughout two short stories. The character’s Mary from Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to The Slaughter” and the characters Minnie Foster, Mrs. Hale, and Mrs. Peters of Susan Glaspell’s “Jury of Her Peers” are all in a patriarchal society where men hold more power than women politically, socially, and economically. Their stories are perfect examples of gendered hierarchy.

Both Mary and Minnie Foster are childless housewives whose lives revolved around their husbands. Their normal routines were interrupted by an incident that triggered both of them to murder their husbands. Mary doesn’t want her life and routine to change and Minnie’s husband kills her bird. Mary does the same thing every day; she cooks, cleans, and waits on her husband’s hand and foot. Knowing the time that her husband arrives home each day Mary makes sure that their home is immaculate and everything is ready for him. When Mary’s husband, Patrick, arrives home he says he has something to tell Mary and it is going to come “as a bit of a shock” (75). Her first instinct was to ignore him and carry on with her routine as if nothing happened.

She went to get supper ready for him and felt like “she couldn’t feel her feet touching the floor. She couldn’t feel anything at all” (90) She came back with a leg of lamb to cook for dinner and walks right up behind him brought it up high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head. After finding out that Patrick was leaving her, she is shocked into killing her husband with the leg of lamb they were having for dinner. This shows that one of Mary’s role in the household was to cook and look after her husband. When her role of being a doting housewife was threatened she killed her husband. Similarly, Minnie from the “jury of her peers” puts a rope around her husband’s neck and kills him while he is sleeping. When looking for evidence on who committed the murder of Minnie’s husband the men make belittling comments about individual women’s weaknesses and strengths. The men repeatedly say that items in the kitchen or the items that Mrs. Wright requested didn’t matter (23). By doing this the men devalue the women by devaluing the only thing that was left to the control of the women. Mrs. Peter’s and Mrs. Hale accept the treatment they receive from the male characters. They contribute to the gender roles by believing that some things are only the men’s responsibility, such as finding evidence. It is apparent that Mary and Minnie shared the loneliness, mistreatment, and isolation that came with gender roles. This ultimately led them to kill their husbands.

Although it seems in the stories that both Mary and Minnie were justified in their crimes; neither murder was premeditated. Both ladies were able to get rid of the evidence that tied them to the murders. Mary killed her husband when she hit him in the head with a frozen leg of lamb. Being a detectives wife she knew she had to set up an alibi. She cooked the murder weapon and then went to the grocery store to establish her alibi. She “rehearsed several times” (125) before shopping for the evening dinner and was not home when her husband was killed. Mary then called the police and told them that she found her husband dead. After verifying her alibi with the officers she insists on the detectives eating the murder weapon by saying “Please. Please eat it” (270). Similarly, Minnie ties a rope around her husband’s neck and kills him. Throughout the story the men couldn’t find any evidence that tied Minnie to the murder. While Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters were walking around the house they took notice of the different stitch patterns. They decided to bring the quilt to Minnie to finish. While looking for extra patches they came across a “pretty box” (221). When they opened it up they found Minnie’s bird dead and realize “somebody’s wrung its neck” (225). The ladies took it upon themselves to hide the box with the bird in it and smuggle it out of the house without the officers seeing it. Without the dead bird as evidence the detectives have no clear reason why Minnie would have murdered her husband. Although both Mary and Minnie killed their husbands they were both able to get rid of evidence that would connect them to the murders.

Mary’s husband’s actions led her to hitting him in the head with a leg of lamb and killing him. Minnie’s husband wrung the neck of her beloved bird so she tied a rope around his neck and killed him while he was sleeping. Both characters show that the gender roles women are placed in can create a toxic atmosphere. Mary and Minnie were both able to get rid of any evidence that connected them with the murders. They were never convicted of the crimes and justice was not served for their husbands.

This project is based on two plays, Trifles and A Raisin in the Sun, and how a new set of actors are going to be cast to play each of the characters in the plays. The plays vary tremendously in nature and the world they bring in for the audience and hence, their characters differ too. Trifles, written in 1916, narrates a tale of two women, how they scrutinize the life of another woman and discover harsh realities about the life she was leading, with a case of murder being the backdrop. A Raisin in the Sun is a play about a black family’s daily functionality and the dreams of the characters. Set in Chicago in 1957, it portrays the struggles black people had to endure whenever they dared to step up and out of the box. I, hereby, would cast current working actors to the characters of the aforementioned plays as we shall proceed further in this paper. The characters in Trifles are a County Attorney named George Henderson, a Sheriff named Henry Peters, a farmer named Lewis Hale, and the wives of the Sheriff and the farmer referred as Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale throughout the play. County Attorney George Henderson and Sheriff Henry Peters’ legal positions and characters are distinct but in the play they basically work as two alter egos of the same individual. They are for all intents and purposes indistinct from each other, aside from their expert qualifications, since they treat the ladies in a similar way and possess a similar overly fixated point of view, strongly persuaded of their own significance and aptitude while the ladies illuminate the mystery directly underneath their noses. Mr. Hale, however, is portrayed differently than the other two male characters of the play as by profession, he holds a lower status than the others and hence, expresses a feeling of obligation to abide by their orders without raising a voice of his own.

Attempting to cast for Country Attorney and Sheriff, I would opt for Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt respectively, for their characters in the movie Se7en. William Somerset from Se7en, played astoundingly by Morgan Freeman, is a senior detective with sharp skills who is paired with David Mills, another idealistic detective played by Brad Pitt, to solve the mystery behind the murders inspired by the seven deadly sins. Throughout the movie, they work jointly as an unbreakable team to solve the case and relating that with the pairing of Country Attorney and Sheriff from Trifles, I desire to get Freeman and Pitt on board to play these two characters from the play. The Greatest Showman is a movie about a man, played by Hugh Jackman, who dreams and works hard to turn it into a vision with his family being his constant priority. It is a tale of his journey as a showman from scratch and how from time and again, he has proved himself that deep inside he is a basic family man who adores his loved ones to death. To play Mr. Hale from the play, Hugh Jackman would be a perfect fit as their journeys and life stories may differ drastically but few inherent characteristics such as being down to earth, relate them with each other.

Mrs. Hale, the wife of Lewis Hale and the neighbor of the Wrights, is to be one of the major driving forces of the play. She is extremely outspoken, confidently commenting on the men’s disrespect towards them whereas the men failing to relate this nature of hers as a threat to their investigation. Instead of seeing Mrs. Wright as the murderer, with valid statements and a plethora of emotions, she managed to depict Mrs. Wright as the victim to the audience. She possesses utmost empathy towards Mrs. Wright and her acumen, paired with that of Mrs. Peters’, brought some light to the ongoing mystery. Mrs. Peters on the other hand, is torn apart by the opposing forces of her role as a Sheriff’s wife who is bound to follow the law and her role as a woman who empathizes Mrs. Wright’s situation. Her loyalty towards her husband’s profession does not allow her to be in favor of Mrs. Wright at first but gradually when she reminisces her own struggles and with the persuasion of Mrs. Hale, her role as a woman overcomes all the other social norms that she was held back by.

Mona Lisa from the movie My Cousin Vinny, played by Marisa Tomei, is a strong woman who never hesitates to speak her mind and always supports her loved ones. Vinny, her fiancé and the protagonist of the story, faces multiple hurdles through the course of the plotline and Lisa stood by him like a constant pillar, encouraged him mentally and also saved him from practical problems quite a lot of times. Mrs. Hale too, always speaks her mind and can turn bold and empathetic at the same time which makes Marisa Tomei a suitable choice to play her in Trifles.

The character of Mrs. Peters has contrasting thought process throughout the play. She wishes to think differently towards Mrs. Wright but her social position holds her back. However, she overcomes the shackles of society during the climax, where the actual person inside her could raise a voice. May Welland’s character from the movie The Age of Innocence, played beautifully by Winona Ryder, has quite a few similarities with the thought process of Mrs. Peters. She is a typical family person, extremely well behaved and constantly trapped under the social norms of the elite class of New York in the 1870s. She readily accepts her position, understands her limitations but when time comes, she shows that she also has an opinion that needs to be heard. Her husband’s infidelity was not unknown to her and when required, without letting anyone understand, she boldly took the step which was needful to save her family. For all the aforementioned qualities, I would want Winona Ryder to play Mrs. Peters from Trfiles, in a similar way she played her character of May Welland.

The characters in A Raisin in the Sun are Ruth Younger, Beneatha Younger, Walter Younger, Travis Younger, Lena Younger, Joseph Asagai, George Murchison, Karl Lindner and Bobo. Ruth Younger, the wife of Walter Younger, is a bold woman who relentlessly has to deal with her household problems causing her to have multiple conflicts with her husband, her mother-in-law, and the rest of her family. She works tirelessly to help make the ends meet for her closed ones while donning a strong personality, which overshadows her inner desires and helplessness. Beneath Younger, the younger sister of Walter Younger is a breath of fresh air in the play who carries a strong set of opinions and never shies away to express her desires. She is shown to be getting a proper education, ventures to try out various activities, and for a black young girl in the 1950s, her having multiple romantic relationships helps the audience to visualize her as a modern lady.

Hidden Figure is a movie which tells the story of three colored women who worked at NASA during the Space Race. To portray Ruth Younger, I would like to cast Taraji P. Henson, who played the role of Katherine Jackson in the movie as I believe like Ruth, she is also an extremely bold woman who can manage both her household and her work front irrespective of how many times the world tries to turn her down because of her skin color. Mary Jackson, enacted by Janelle Monáe, was an engineer of NASA who overcame a myriad of hurdles to reach her dream. Her character relates with that of Beneatha’s as both of them strive for education, are extremely opinionated and face discrimination for being colored women in the United States around late 1950s and early 1960s. Hence, I would choose Janelle Monáe to play Beneatha in A Raisin in the Sun.

Walter Younger is an intense young man who has been beaten down by life as a black man so many times that, it has made him impulsive, irritated and emotional. He dreams highly for himself and his family but as a victim of the institutionalized United States of the 1950s, has to work as a chauffeur for other people which constantly make him question his masculinity. Lena Younger, also known as Mama, is the head of the family whose definition of life, freedom and God constantly contradicts with that of her children. Like the other women in the play, she too possess a strong personality who tries to keep her family intact no matter how many times it was on the verge of being scattered and for that, does not fear to take unlikely decisions too.

Will Smith plays the role of Chris Gardener in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness. In the story, his character is an ambitious salesman whose dreams take multiple tolls on his family’s financial situation and the setbacks even lead to his wife moving away from him, leaving their five-year-old son with Gardener. Walter Younger’s character relates with that of Chris Gardener’s as they both, along with their families, had to go through financial hardships, a price they had to pay for daring to dream and hence, I believe Will Smith would be able to play him perfectly. In For Colored Girls, Whoopi Goldberg played the role of Alice Adrose, in a movie that tells the story of nine colored women. Her character was filled with complications and bruises from her past but one thing that made me relate her character to that of Lena Younger’s is her compassionate nature towards the other girls, especially the rape victim Tangie, in the movie. Lena is the head of the Younger household and amidst her strict set of beliefs and personal struggles, she provides compassion in all her relations and hence, even though the characters differ a lot, I would want Whoopi Goldberg to take up the challenge to play Lena Younger from the play.

Joseph Asagai, a man Beneatha meets in college, is romantically interested in her despite the fact that she appears to be less worried about discovering love than she is with making sense of what her identity is. Asagai brings Africa, and especially Nigeria, to Beneatha through music, dresses and cultural information. While he appreciates Beneatha for being so genuine, he also understands her deep longing to connect with her roots. The perfect opposite of Asagai, George Murchison is a youthful black man whose family has absorbed into American culture and amassed riches. The Youngers are stunned when Beneatha finds such a rich and successful man to be an uninteresting romantic possibility. George and his family have expelled themselves from the same network of black people that Beneatha tries to delve more into.

In the movie Home Again, the character played by Stephan James is deported back to his home country from the States. He feels tremendously lost there as even though it is technically his home, he is used to living elsewhere and is having a hard time adapting to where he originally belongs. Joseph Asagai from A Raisin in the Sun is a man who even after staying in the States, tries to keep his connection with his roots intact. The trajectory of the two characters vary slightly so it would be interesting for Stephan James to be casted to play Joseph Asagai. Nick Persons, a character played by Ice Cube in the movie Are We There Yet?, is a family man with a routine lifestyle. He knows his priorities well enough hence, I would want Ice Cube to play George Murchison as they both are the conventional perfect fits for their respective societies. Travis Younger, the son of Ruth and Walter Younger, is a well behaved young boy who hardly complains even when he has to sleep in the living room where his father entertains his friends all night. He is shown to understand the financial situation of his house as when his mother refuses to give him fifty cents, instead of arguing with her, he asks for permission to earn it himself. The other two characters in the play are not a part of the Younger household and they are, Karl Lindner and Bobo. Karl Lindner is the representative of the American society of that time who constantly demeans the black community. With his extreme politeness, he asks the Youngers to not move into a white community and sugarcoats the situation to make it seem like its for their own good. Lindner recommends that it is in the family’s wellbeing to stay in a region where they will be among individuals who belong to the same community as them. Bobo, Walter’s friend and potential business associate, gives an insight towards the general helplessness of the people during that time apart from that of the Youngers. Both Walter and Bobo face betrayal from their friend who flees with all their money leaving nothing but their dreams to die behind.

The character of Travis Younger has lower demands than the other characters of the play. To play him, I would want Lonnie Chavis from the series This Is Us as like Travis, the character enacted by Chavis in the series is also a well behaved and decent young boy. We hardly know anything about the traits Bobo has in his character hence to play him, Chadwick Boseman would be a good option. Bobo is shown to be a gentleman in the very little scenes he appears in, and Boseman played roles of hardworking and chivalrous men multiple times such as in his venture with the movie Get On Up. Karl Linder is the antagonist, disguised as a peacemaker, of the play and to enact him, George Clooney, who played Thomas Devoe in the movie The Peacemaker, is my desired choice. Clooney is a Lieutenant Colonel in the movie and manipulation comes along with the profession itself hence, he would be able to ace Lindner’s role perfectly as all Lindner did was manipulate the Youngers.

These are all my chosen cast for Trifles and A Raisin in the Sun where, for both the group of actors, I would require them to delve into the stories and times of the plays. Afterward, they are highly recommended to bond with each other, know each other’s characters alongside their own ones, and be comfortable with the costumes and set by rehearsing multiple times. Through these activities, they will consider themselves a part of the narrative they are playing for and together, will deliver an enriching performance.

Introduction to Gender Dynamics in “Trifles”

“Trifles” tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Wright, without them ever being present. Instead, we are introduced to Sheriff Peters, Mrs. Peters, Hale, Mrs. Hale, and County Attorney Henderson, who try to uncover the truth behind the murder of Mr. Wright. Hale tells them that he came in to see Mr. Wright one day, but was met with Mrs. Wright telling him that he was dead. As they investigate, the true nature of Mr. and Mrs. Wright’s relationship becomes more evident.

The Symbolism of Trifles: Women’s Insight vs. Men’s Oversight

The sexism from the male characters becomes more clear too. The women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, do their best to defend Mrs. Wright when the men insult how her cupboards are messy and her towels are dirty saying how she had much to take on for she worked on a farm. The first signs of trouble bubble up to the surface when Mrs. Hale comments on how she hasn’t been to the house in a year because it wasn’t very “cheerful” due to Mr. Wright being in it. At one point, Hale says, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell 10). Trifles are defined as both a dessert and something unimportant. It’s one of many lines that show the misogynistic views of men during this time period and how they viewed women to have more domestic roles and as an inferior group. In the blocking, it’s shown how the women are always sticking close together and being dismissed by the men.

Discovering the Truth: The Women’s Investigation

As soon as the men leave to go upstairs, the women clean the mess in the kitchen and collect what Mrs. Wright wants them to bring to her in jail, but, unconsciously, start investigating the case on their own. They start recognizing the strange shift in Mrs. Wright’s behavior, from “…one of the town girls singing in the choir” before her marriage to someone who doesn’t participate in the community anymore (Glaspell 14). The men laugh at the women for inspecting Mrs. Wright’s unfinished quilt and Mrs. Hale says, “I don’t know as there’s anything so strange, our takin’ up our time with little things while we’re waiting for them to get the evidence” (Glaspell 16). It’s ironic because the women are the ones finding the real evidence by paying attention to the “little things” that are irrelevant to the men because they view women and the tasks that they do as lesser. Though both women care about what will happen to Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Hale is described as more resentful of the men when saying the aforementioned line while Mrs. Peters apologetically says how the men are “just doing their jobs.” This moment shows the contrast between women, like Susan Glaspell, who were trying to break away from the conditioned mindset put upon them by society during this time and those who weren’t of the more progressive ideals. Because of the quilt, the women pick up on how Wright’s bad sewing must have meant she was nervous and start to question why she would be nervous. They then discover an empty birdcage. Mrs. Hale further expresses remorse about not having been there to support Mrs. Wright all this time. They comment on how she was like a bird herself, free, but then confined to a cage. Even though Mr. Wright was considered a good guy by the people in the town, Mrs. Hale says he was “…like a raw wind that gets to the bone” (Glaspell 19). When looking for sewing supplies to fix the quilt, they find a dead bird, which immediately creates tension between the women for what has occurred has started to make more sense. When the men come down, they don’t say anything about this revelation and when the men leave, they express their sadness and fear. Mr. Wright wrung the bird’s neck out, so Mrs. Wright did the same to him. Mrs. Peters thinks they need to tell the truth, but Mrs. Hale exclaims how the real crime is what has happened to Mrs. Wright all this time. Mrs. Hale says how women “…all go through the same things⎼it’s all just a different kind of same thing” (Glaspell 23). As the men come down to leave, the women remain mum about what has occurred and, when they aren’t looking, take the box with the bird, knowing the dire consequences Mrs. Wright would suffer.

“A Jury of Her Peers”: Expanding on “Trifles”

“A Jury of Her Peers” is the short story Susan Glaspell wrote based on the murder of John Hassock and was released after her play, based on the same event, “Trifles.” Both are extremely similar, except that one is a short story and the other is a play. “A Jury of Her Peers” is also told more from the perspective of Martha Hale, who sympathized deeply with Minnie Wright having known a time when Minnie was happy. The lines in the play and the dialogue in the short story are practically identical, but the short story gives us much more detail into the behavior of the characters we have become familiar with through the play. Again, especially with Mrs. Hale, when we get a part of the short story like this: “The picture of that girl, the fact that she had lived neighbor to that girl for twenty years, and had let her die for lack of life, was suddenly more than she could bear” (A Jury of Her Peers — Full Text). It becomes clearer to the reader how gut-wrenching this revelation is and how Martha Hale can sympathize with Minnie Wright’s pain. Another great moment is towards the end when the women silently decide what to do with the evidence: “…Martha Hale’s eyes pointed the way to the basket in which was hidden the thing that would make certain the conviction of the other woman⎼that woman who was not there and yet who had been there with them all through that hour” (A Jury of Her Peers — Full Text). It brings back the theme, that was present in Glaspell’s “Trifles,” of the women not being particularly close with Mrs. Wright, but knowing the truth of Mrs. Wright’s situation and how no men would be able to empathize with it in the way they did.

Susan Glaspell’s Inspiration and Feminist Themes

The inspiration behind “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” came from Glaspell’s time working for the Des Moines Daily News and reporting on the Margaret Hossack case. On December 3rd, 1901, John Hossack was murdered by a blow to the head with an ax. Investigators originally believed it to be a burglary, but there was no evidence to support it. His wife, Margaret Hossack, claimed that she did not see or hear this attack, despite being in the same bed as her husband. After John Hossack’s funeral, Margaret Hossack was arrested for the crime, but took the arrest calmly. She didn’t have support from the people in the community, and news of her and her husband’s arguments started coming out. As Glaspell observes in one of the articles she wrote, Margaret Hossack “…looks like she would be dangerous if aroused to a point of hatred” (“Midnight Assassin :: Patricia Bryan and Thomas Wolf”). But according to her neighbors, Hossack claimed that her husband often got angry with her and abused her, and she worried that he would end up killing her or their children. Margaret Hossack was found guilty and was sentenced to life, but their decision was rebuked over a technicality and the second trial was unable to reach a verdict. She ended up dying in 1916, which would end up being around the time when Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” would open.

Susan Glaspell began her writing career after graduating from Drake University and reporting at the Des Moines Daily News. She then left journalism to continue writing short stories on her own. Glaspell met George Cook in 1913, married him, and moved with him to Greenwich Village, which at the time was known for being quite artistically and politically liberated. That is where she began writing plays. In 1915, Glaspell and Cook founded the Provincetown Players in Provincetown, Cape Cod. The goal of the Provincetown Players was to have actors, directors, and playwrights to create work with no restraints. During the time she was at the Provincetown Players, she wrote eleven plays and “…more plays by women writers than any other theatre of the time” where produced there (The International Susan Glaspell Society). Cook and Glaspell eventually left the theatre over the Players all having different ambitions and intentions. They went to live in Greece, but Glaspell returned to the United States after Cook had passed there. Stimulated by her time in Greece, Glaspell wrote “The Fugitive’s Return,” a novel about a woman reclaiming her life after having not fully lived it in a meaningful or fulfilling way. In the 1930’s, she continued working on plays for a company, but eventually returned to Provincetown to continue working on novels after having felt controlled by the regulations placed on her.

Conclusion: The Enduring Relevance of Glaspell’s Work

According to The International Susan Glaspell Society, “Glaspell’s plays and fiction portray feminist issues such as women’s struggle for expression in a patriarchal culture, the loving yet fraught relationships between daughters and mothers, and female friendship as an essential part of women’s growth toward autonomy and selfhood.” The themes Glaspell covers in many of her works relate to women going through issues and journeys that are still applicable in the present. “Trifles” brings to light the issue of domestic abuse by telling the story of a woman who had been in an abusive relationship that completely changed who she was and was unwilling to say she killed her abuser because of the repercussions she could face as a woman.

In the early 1900s, when the murder of John Hossack occurred and Susan Glaspell wrote “Trifles,” the Woman Suffrage Movement was occurring. What launched this movement was the Seneca Falls Convention in New York in 1848. This movement focused on suffragists demanding women get the right to vote. To get politicians to listen to them about other legislation they wanted to pass, women had to become enfranchised. In 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified and women won the right to vote. This time could also be referred to as the “first wave” of feminism where women primarily sought political equality.

The “New Woman” was a term used to describe women during the period of 1890 to 1920, who defied the standard gender roles prescribed to women by seeking greater freedom. Women created organizations to gain women’s suffrage, were college-educated, did not concern themselves with having to get married, and sought work outside of being a housewife. They created their own power to alter their lives socially, politically, and economically. It also focused on women separating themselves from male authority. The “New Woman” “…is more than a good mother, a good wife, a good daughter. In fact, she need not be none of those because she can stand independently” (“A Definition of the ‘The New Woman’ from Alice Freeman Palmer: The Evolution of a New Woman, a 1993 Biography by Ruth Bordin”). However, the image of the “New Woman” shifted over time. It started with the “Gibson Girl,” which was more of a beauty ideal rather than an ideology. While the “Gibson Girl” did symbolize women getting more educational and work opportunities, she still applied to societal standards and was relatively conservative. Only in the 1910s did a more political side to the New Woman come to fruition. This new woman was more synonymous with women wanting to gain political power and, particularly, the right to vote.

In Julie Taymor’s production of Igor Stravinsky’s opera “Oedipus Rex,” Oedipus Rex is depicted in two ways: one as the performer portraying Oedipus by singing and interacting with other characters and the other as a dancer, on a separate platform, doing movements that could be interpreted as “inner” Oedipus or Oedipus’ thoughts. As an artist, that is what my vision would be based on for if I were to do a production of “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell. Instead of creating an “inner” version of a character on stage, I would like to bring Mrs. Wright into the play through movement. Because the characters on stage speak about her and point her out in specific areas on the stage, I would want her to be doing those tasks while also evoking the pain she feels from being in an abusive relationship. She wouldn’t speak as a signifier of women’s voices and opinions being considered inferior to men’s during that time, and also not being able to express to others that she was being abused. The specific style of dance done in Julie Taymor’s production is known as “Butoh.” It seems to be hard to define, but is said to focus “…on primal expressions of the human condition rather than physical beauty” (“’Butoh’: the Dance of Death and Disease”). I want the same visceral feeling I got from watching Butoh in “Oedipus Rex”, but I don’t think I would want to stick to the style of Butoh. I imagine a myriad of styles showing her highs, whenever the women on stage reminisce about her days as Minnie Foster, and her lows, when the revelation of what she did is uncovered and all her pain is released.

In 1916, the play “Trifles” was made by Susan Glaspell. She was conceived in Davenport Iowa. “Trifles” was produced using a real killing court case and subsiding of a farmer’s better half that Susan Glaspell was covering while then working for Des Moines News. The play showed to be puzzling learning into the lives of criticalness-stricken, maltreatment and noteworthy women. The title of the play was worked all through the likelihood that men review the power and objectives of ladies pointless or insignificant. Women had no ensured worth or reason in this world. Ladies are all the time analyzed for concentrating on little assortment and not having the decision to look at the more unmistakable view. Regardless, these little nuances and inconsequential things uncover a ton about a condition or individual regardless before the culmination of the story Glaspell ensures that the get-together of spectators secure the certifiable quality need and mental intensity of a woman and the abominable displays she needs to manage each day.

In the play “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” the plot spins around Mrs. Minnie Wright’s kitchen. Her life partner Mr. John Wright had been executed and Mrs. Wright was in prison as the central suspect. While the town police are taking a gander at the house they find no confirmation or need behind the bad murder. In any case the women Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters who go with the police unassumingly handle the issue. Mrs. Wright a farmer’s significant other had been surged toward the edge by her undermining mate and their moderate marriage. She had been separated from her loved ones and took a long way from her adoration until the completion of time. Following a long time of inadequacy, she executes her better half Mr. Wright in a trap of ferocity. Minnie’s defective work was the crucial piece of data found by the women. The second piece of data was showed up through an all points and purposes flawless sewing done by Mrs. Wright. The most inciting endorsement was the dead feathered creature and the birdcage. these insignificant parts revealed to the women that Mrs. Wright was behind the murder. Everything considered they would not tell the men of their solicitation. The women hid the verification from the men fundamentally stating they had been in Minnie’s place sooner or later in their lives. They felt confused about her and disguised all these bits of data with the objective that she wouldn’t be prosecuted for manslaughter.

While the police experts isolated unequivocally for something to show paralyze the women about found such insistence yet covered it conspiratorially. Mrs. Hale finds a kitchen towel half flawless and half wild. It was the way she had left her very own kitchen in a race to ride to the Wright’s home. It showed up obviously that Mrs. Wright was going to make jam yet had left them rapidly outside wide open to the harsher parts. The men held no vitality for these unimportant issues yet, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter grasped that they all experience commonly comparable to things and it begin and end just a substitute kind of something especially like. It was evident from these half-completed errands that something huge had happened and had driven her to present a grave show. Another unimportant issue was the enchanting spread Mrs. Hale found with a hazardous situation up at the last bit of sewing. She was certain that the general looked just as she didn’t have the foggiest thought what she was about while various patches had every one of the reserves of being better than normal and even. The two women promptly fixed the tumult paying little respect to understanding that they shouldn’t contact things. It gives that the two women have encountered for all intents and purposes indistinguishable completions of difference and disgustingness and concurred with Mrs. Wright. The last bit of the conundrum was an unfilled birdcage with its turn broken. The dead canary was inside with its neck wringed. The birdcage would have made it without inquiry that Mrs. Wright executed Mr. Wright. The two women oversaw everything and covered every bit of it since they understood what had drove Mrs. Wright to seethe. They knew how it felt to have no respect or rights. Notwithstanding the way that Glaspell never truly yield in the play that Mrs. Wright was mishandled in any case different things show out the undeniable end. Mrs. Wright could never a long way from this marriage paying little mind to how cruelly she was administered.

The lifestyle and social standards oversaw division or group as unbelievable. Free working women were loathed by society. The bona fide status of women was proportionate to convicts slaves and the insane. The activity of a woman was limited to duplicating youngster’s housekeeping and managing their families while their spouses worked. Mrs. Wright and the women of that time couldn’t break free. In any case Mrs. Wright experienced a monstrous area of her time on earth affirmed up a home with a miserly hardhearted spouse and a brief time span later a stunning additional part in a medicinal spot. The women helping her spread the verification were endeavoring to change not simply Mrs. Wright’s fate at any rate the destiny of various others like her. This play reasonably managed sexual course partition. It was a recorded take a gander at the fight’s ladies experienced to find respect and correspondence. Asking to be refuted columnists like Glaspell intentionally or out of the blue obliged women to rise and recuperate their certifiable and social chances. In this play women controlled in their home hold without men paying little mind to recollecting that it. They finally rendered requital for being thought of as dolt and unsophisticated. Following a long time of fight they finally ensured their serene triumph.

With everything considered the play “Trifles” utilizes play works, characters, talk, symbolism, language, and subjects to show primary issues that restricted distinctive social requesting for long. The play is a shocking bit of sharp work that advances the issues of huge worth male quality and women suffrage. It well repulses social sales standards and old news that abuse one gathering of people. The play approach is on the probability that touch of work could be a depiction of one’s open. This approach shockingly winning in this play. The play is short unelaborated and un-energized. Regardless by and by knowing the certified homicide story that this play was obligated to by finding dynamically about the character and the early proximity of Susan Glaspell finally understanding the strong male control in this play back then and now it makes the play that much clearer. All around the play gave an inconceivable learning stage to build up one’s data and see progressively about sensational.

During the 19th century, women were obligated to follow the wants of their husbands who had complete power of every little thing. They had a limited say in any decision and had to burden themselves with their thoughts as their opinions were never prioritized. Constantly in the world around us, people are influenced by the expectations put into place. Many times through understanding and acceptance people can acquire different perspectives of a situation. Martha Hale begins by feeling guilty after never visiting Minnie Wright once she realizes what living in a society that women have no control to follow their own desires creates. She changes her view on Minnie Wright as she begins to perceive what it is like to try and please the patriarchal rules of society. Looking through a feminist lens, in “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell, Martha Hale’s attitude toward Minnie Wright’s guilt shifts from fearful disengagement to compassionate understanding condemning the depth of the patriarchal mindset on women of the time period.

In “A Jury of Her Peers” Martha Hale’s attitude toward Minnie Wright’s guilt begins as being fearful disengagement. As Martha, Mrs. Peters, Mr.Peters, Mr. Hale and the sheriff are investigating, the sheriff begins to question Martha. He starts off asking “’But you and Mrs. Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too.’ ‘…And why was that? You didn’t like her?’ ‘I liked her well enough,’ she replied with spirit. ‘Farmers’ wives have their hands full, Mr. Henderson. And then–‘ She looked around the kitchen. ‘Yes?’ he encouraged. ‘It never seemed a very cheerful place,’ said she, more to herself than to him” (Glaspell 4). The attorney uses the word “friends” to describe the relationship between Martha and Minnie after being neighbors for 20 years. After living next to someone for years one would assume there is a bond of mutual affection, but Martha exclaims that she has only seen a little of her in the last years which is unusual since they are consistently around.

The sheriff concludes that since they have been living next to each other for years that they should be close, but Martha should have the ability to choose whom she wants to interact with. Furthermore, Martha is forced to justify her reasoning when asked the questions “And why was that? You didn’t like her?” by the county sheriff when in reality it does not relate to investigation in any way. Martha is busy fulfilling farming duties, portrays that she is prevented from exploring the world around her as her duties of laborious hours of work comes first. She does not have time to visit Minnie Wright causing her to be disengaged. The positive connotative diction of the word “cheerful” portrays something being full of spirit and happiness. Martha describing Minnie’s house as not being cheerful, additionally, adds to her unattachment toward her. Martha isn’t able to think for herself on whether she wants to go visit Minnie’s house but is rather influenced by the society around her. Even though she has never been inside Minnie’s house or have talked to Minnie in years she fears it which demonstrates an stereotype within women. Woman are seen as weak and often as being easily manipulated into believing anything society puts forth.

In “A Jury of Her Peers” Martha Hale’s attitude toward Minnie Wright’s guilt chances to compassionate understanding. After Martha and Mrs.Peters find out that Minnie Wright had been piecing a quilt before she had been placed in jail they realized a few of the stitches had not been done right. As Martha begins to fix the stitch, she proclaims “‘But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs. Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here. I wish–I had. I stayed away because it weren’t cheerful–and that’s why I ought to have come. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now–’She did not put it into words” (Glaspell 8). Through the use of repetition of the words “I wish I had ” Glaspell is demonstrating that Martha is beginning to feel guilty about never visiting Minnie Wright’s house. She thinks that by re-stitching the quilt she is not afraid to interfere with Minnie’s possessions, and that she wishes she could help Minnie now that it is too late to do so. By repeating each sentence with the word “I” Glaspell is elucidating that Martha is constantly blaming herself for the wrongdoing. This creates an remorseful attitude in which she could have been able to prevent the actions Minnie potentially committed toward her husband. To furthermore emphasis Martha’s regret, Glaspell uses hyphens between sentences to illustrate that she having to think rapidly about what she wants to say next exemplifying how overwhelmed she is by the thought of the whole situation. Martha begins to feel sympathy causing her to conceal the evidence they have found showing that she is a performing an act of rebellion against men and the patriarchal society. She changes her perspective and relates to Minnie as reaches a realization that they both suffer under the power of their husbands. Martha recognizes that Minnie will never be understood by other, but since Martha is also a women, it allows Minnie’s actions to be judge in a practical way.

Through a feminist lense, Susan Glaspell amplifies Martha Hale’s attitude toward Minnie Wright’s guilt from being fearful disengagement to compassionate understanding in order to criticize the depth of the patriarchal mindset on women of the time period. As Martha begins by being disengaged from Minnie Wright she changes her view and begins to acknowledge her.

Susan Glaspell’s Jury of Her Peers illustrates how women’s moral judgment is influenced by the authority of men and how a shared female experience gives insight that is ultimately more important to women’s moral judgment. Women’s awakening, their feminine solidarity, and political advocacy are inseparable from their awareness of the gender discrimination and oppression embedded in the existing legal system, and their sensitive development of alternative, feminine justice, and judgment. The search for feminist consciousness and the foundation of an informed community of women imply the rejection of the legal order as a tool of patriarchal domination and exploration of feminine legal thought. Glaspell anticipates both legal feminist theory reflecting on domination, injustice, and resistance, as well as psychological feminist theory focusing on care ethics, female voice, and feminine networking. Further, her narrative offers a uniquely coherent, comprehensive worldview, combining the two perspectives, often perceived as contrasting.

Woman bonding is a central theme in Her Peers Jury, long praised by feminist writers. Conversing, Minnie’s neighbor and the wife of the sheriff understand how hard her work must have been on the bad stove, how shabby and miserable she must have looked in her washed-out shoes, and how she must have felt in her worn-out clothes, and how she must have longed for music. They must appreciate how desperately she must have missed other women’s company, social activity, warm conversation and the sense of friendship. Looking into Minnie’s life, they are horrified to discover that it reflects their own. Faced with this reflection of their mute lives, they share the painful process of seeing themselves, confronting the reality of their lives, admitting it, conveying it and acting as a community. Acknowledging Minnie’s life as a reflection of their own lives, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters recognize their distinct cultural perspective as women and fins their unique, communal voice. Using this newly discovered voice, they begin to articulate their story of Minnie’s and life of their own.

The women’s story is told with much compassion for the accused woman. Their quiet, hesitant narration focuses on emotional elements: her pain, hardships, and disappointment. Empathizing with the absent woman, the two neighbors notice the smallest details of Minnie’s life, respectfully acknowledging their significance. Intuitively, it came into Mrs. Hale’s mind that the rocker didn’t look the same. It was a dingy red rocker with wooden dungs up the back, and the middle rung was gone, and the chair sagged to one side. Minnie’s life is reflected in that chair. Similarly, the women apprehend the har labor that went into preparing the fruit preserves they find in her kitchen and feel for Minnie’s loss. They appreciate the sentimental value of Minnie’s little box, which she must have since childhood, and understand her deep attachment to the canary she buried it in. They notice the uneven stitches in Minnie’s quilt, expressive of her emotional turmoil, and carefully replace them with prettier ones.

In contrast to the women’s attitude with the men’s, Glaspell emphasizes the distinct nature of their different voices and point of view. Although Glaspell’s female protagonists speak in a different voice, the story they tell is one of patriarchal dominance and exploitation. The Minnie they reconstruct is an abused woman, confined and harassed by her oppressive husband. Witnessing the men’s legal investigation of Minnie’s crime, the women in the story perceive it as additional abuse of the unfortunate woman. Invading Minnie’s home, the men turn it against her. Blind to the tragic circumstances of her life, they read every piece of information as testifying to her guilt. Even the dirty towel is said by the men to attest to Minnie’s lack of home-making instinct. Further, Glaspell subjects Mr. Peters Mrs. Hale themselves to male oppression.

The men repeatedly belittle, patronize, and mock them. Trivializing their domestic work, doubting their intelligence and ridiculing their interest in the feminine craft. They refrain from presenting the dead canary to the investigating people, and they remove and repair Minnie’s imperfect stitches. Realizing their social position outside the legal arena as well as the law’s inability to see women’s lives to hear their stories recognize their pain or try justly, they refuse to cooperate and instead implement their justice system. In the face of a hostile, masculine legal system, the women find their distinct sense of justice and judgment. They apply their common sense, life experience, and point of view. Conducting an alternative legal process, they determine what is and is not relevant to the case, and what constitutes reasonable behavior. We establish the existence of a ‘fair woman,’ determine her distinctness from a ‘reasonable man,’ and consider that, in Minnie’s circumstance, the ‘reasonable woman’ could have acted as the accused did. In this, we consider Minnie ‘reasonable’ and exonerate her. Throughout their alternative legal proceeding, the woman claims that perhaps the killed canary is a critical piece. Within the men’s legal system, this testimony would have provided the excuse for Minnie’s crime to justify her wickedness, madness, and guilt. Within the women’s legal system, the dead bird is the evidence of John’s misconduct and Minnie’s reasonable.

Feminine legal culture, therefore, is a significant result of and reaction to masculine legal domination, yet it reflects a distinct ethic of compassion and care. Two feminists’ viewpoints that are often viewed as conflicting oppositional, the ethics of treatment and the ideology of power, appear to be completely consistent and mutually explanatory. The sexist rule is so highly oppressive to women that communal disobedience is their only reasonable means of resistance and survival. Therefore, women are represented as men, although not as unintelligent and unworthy as their husbands suggest. Their powers of observation allow them, for example, to realize how unfairly their men are treating them, but they still don’t think it’s their position to stand up to them. The men continue to ignore their wives, ‘leaving them among the kitchenware,’ as they embark on a search for valuable clues.

The County Attorney instructed them to ‘keep their eyes out for anything that might be of use,’ adding that ‘they might come up with such a hint as to the motive.’ Once her husband killed the light of hope and the only good thing in her life, the bird, her troubled spirit, done the same thing by strangling her husband. The men are so naive that they overlook the fact that the attacker is a woman, a housewife like their mothers, searching for more masculine signs, everywhere but in the kitchen. We, who are supposed to be the wiser group, wouldn’t, unfortunately, come across any indications as ever. People, though, are aware of their affairs, just as men tell them to do, and that’s how we learn the truth of the matter. What is even more impressive about how the women are represented is how they can interact with each other on such significant topics without making men suspicious. It is a combination of feminine instincts and concern for their gender that eventually resolves the situation. There was a moment when they embraced each other in a steady, burning look in which there was no deceptiveness or flinching.

Instead, Martha Hale’s eyes guided the way to the basket in which the thing that would make the other woman’s conviction certain was concealed. It is a mixture of feminine instincts and sympathy for their gender that ultimately solves the case. They stick together, supporting each other against the patriarchy of their existence, not obliging to the ways of men and law and are thus able to save their kindred spirit from jail.

In the article written by Catherine Lavender, a popular saying about women in the late 1800’s was “She does what she can, but she is conscious of her inferiority and therefore grateful for support” (Lavender 3). In “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspel was written in 1917 based in Dickson County, where the characters Mr. Hale, Mr. Peters, and the county attorney are seeking the motive of the murder of John Wright. Minnie Wright is the suspect and eventually Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find the clues and figure out the motive of the murder. Throughout the story, women were seen as oppressed and the submissive figure. Glaspell represents women oppression through symbols. The use of trifles represented the role women played in society given by men. Minnie’s unorganized kitchen demonstrates the ridicule and inferiority women received by the men. Lastly, the use of the dead bird and the bird cage symbolizes the isolation faced by farm wives and the misery faced by Minnie Wright. Glaspell uses symbolism to demonstrate the oppression of women and the sufferings of Minnie Wright in a patriarchal society.

During the 19th century women were oppressed in a patriarchal society. Women lived in separate spheres with limited participation in society. Women had no say or influence in the justice system. Especially in Minnie Wright’s case of her murdering her husband, John Wright. Minnie Wright was abused and used self-defense, but in the law of this time period, it would “condemn her and would see John Wright as the only victim” (Keetley 5). In a case where the wife kills the husband, the women will always be blamed and have no defense because it was always seen as wrong. The society was patriarchal representing the man as dominant and the woman as submissive. The major problem was that abusing women was not a crime and was seen as normal. When there is evidence of abuse, it “disserves rather than serves the interest of the women”(West 5) causing the suffering of women. The law did not benefit nor have equal treatment for women. There wasn’t any justice for women or for Minnie Wright. Minnie is the perfect representation of Women oppression, especially in marriages. John Wright caused a multitude of anguish on her. John will not allow Minnie to have a telephone at home, he “denied his wife access to even the minimal contacts that town life might afford”(Hedges 2), leaving her in isolation. He has left his wife in loneliness away from human contact. This was not uncommon for wives who live on a farm to experience isolation. The husband controls every aspect of their wives life, thus shows the unfairness and trials wives faced from their husbands. This connects to the idea of male superiority over women and having total control. Glaspell demonstrates this idea of a male-dominated society through symbols.

Glaspell uses trifles to symbolize how women were perceived and affected in society. Women were viewed as incapable or not able to do the things a man can do. In “A Jury of Her Peers”, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters experience ridicule from the men in the story. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are worried about Minnie’s broken jars of fruit and Mr. Hale mockingly says that women are “used to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell 299). Since the men are trying to figure out the motive of John’s murder, they see the women worried about the fruit and think that they are incapable of focusing on the investigation. They say this because women were perceived as being good at “womanly” things such as cleaning, cooking, sewing, etc. The men think the women has it easy and they don’t understand the physical labor while working around the house. Especially in Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters case where they are worried about the fruit. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale understand the “physical labor involved in boiling fruit in Iowa heat”(Hedges 4), while the men do not. The work of a woman is a long and tiresome day filled with working with your hands. The trifle of the jars of fruit represent the hard work of women and never being appreciated for any of it. Many women were affected by this, especially Minnie Wright. Minnie expressed her anguish in the quilt that was seen by Mrs. Hale and Mrs.Peters in her home. The women saw the clues that showed Minnie’s “erratic stitching”(Aarons 7) of the quilt that reveals her emotional state and that she’s trying to keep it together. This trifle symbolizes the noose that killed John Wright. Most importantly the quilt symbolizes women’s teamwork and it proved the men wrong in thinking they are not capable of doing a man’s job. Trifles represents the place of women in society given by men and the effects on women.

Minnie’s unorganized kitchen plays a role in the oppression of women by ridicule from the men. Since the woman stays home to take care of the house and children, it is assumed that the house is spotless. In Minnie’s case, “the kitchen: all is amiss”(Bendel-Simso 2), everything is open and half used. The sugar is half full and used, dirty dish towels are sitting on the table. It’s obvious that Minnie’s house is unclean but that doesn’t affect Minnie’s character. The county attorney finds dirty towels, “not much of a housekeeper, would you say ladies?” (Glaspell 299), said as a degrading remark. The county attorney finds Minnie to be a bad housekeeper because of her dirty kitchen. He never wonders why her kitchen is dirty, only assumes that she is a bad housekeeper. The kitchen is a stereotypically place for women so it isn’t normal for a woman’s house to be unclean. In the late 1800’s, it was thought that a house should be kept by a woman and if otherwise is seen as crazy. A common 19th century house had “beautiful, ornate objects–elaborate patterns in cloth covering walls, ornate furniture, pianos, paintings..”(Lavender 4), but Minnie’s house was the total opposite. Minnie’s house was old, dirty and gloomy with scratched furniture. The contrast between kitchens is drastic and reveals information about Minnie’s life with her husband. Minnie’s dirty kitchen symbolizes her tragic life and reveals the attitudes of men. It goes to show how John Wright acted towards Minnie and his true nature of violence. Minnie was mocked by her dirty kitchen but was never put into consideration how her life was at home, thus reveals the hardships of farm wives in the 19th century.

The dead bird and the bird cage symbolizes the misery faced by Minnie in her marriage and farm wives in the 19th century. Minnie and Mr. Peters find the dead bird and notice that “Somebody wrung its neck” (Glaspell 302). The women realize that Mr. Wright ripped open the door and killed the bird. Minnie represents the dead bird being killed by her husband mentally. She was confined to her marriage which reveals the symbol of the bird cage. Also, It represents women as the bird and men as the cage. Women are being trapped in society by men, where they can only be what they are told. There’s a clear and evident contrast of Minnie before and after her marriage. Mrs. Hale remembers Minnie as “real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and fluttery” (Glaspell 300) before her marriage to John Wright. Mrs. Hale remembers her as a beautiful young girl with spirit and after her marriage to John, she was isolated and confined to her home. The dead bird symbolizes the cruelty of John and Minnie’s death. This torment that John has given to Minnie can have many traumatic affects and “ should have triggered murderous behavior in Minnie Wright is therefore neither gratuitous nor melodramatic..” (Hedges 5). It’s expected for someone to go insane in these conditions. He killed the bird so Minnie could have nothing. He killed the only thing left that Minnie loved so she killed him. She not only murder’s her husband, but also she murders her old self, which was all caused by Johns cruelty.

In the late 1800’s, women were oppressed and seen as the submissive figure in a patriarchal society. In “A Jury of Her Peers” Minnie Wright represents how women were treated in this society. Glaspell uses symbols to reveal how women were oppressed. The symbols used were trifles, Minnie’s unorganized kitchen, and the dead bird and bird cage which all played a role in this patriarchal society. The symbols used in this short story portrayed how society was like for women dominated by men, especially Minnie Wright who was accused of killing her husband. It is obvious that women were oppressed and suffered greatly in society and in marriages.

Select one of the short stories and discuss how a particular social group is constructed eg race, gender, socio-economic status.

Particular social groups are often constructed in a negative light. In the short story “A Jury of Her Peers”, the author, Susan Glaspell constructs a patriarchal society in which females are tremendously disregarded. The author uses various narrative conventions to convey this theme. The story features two males trying to solve the murder of a husband, while their wives are collecting the dead husbands, wife’s belongings. The writer creates a dichotomy and tension between the men and the women in the story; the men are logical and deductive whereas, the women are emotional and intuitive. The men are investigating the physical evidence of the crime, and trying to find a motive. On the contrary the women are investigating the mental deterioration of the wife, and can empathise with her, because they can relate to her experiences. Furthermore, the author uses symbolism to display the harsh treatment towards the women in this story. The wives in the story find a quilt which was knitted by the suspect. This quilt represents the horrific life that the suspect suffered. It starts of nice and neat, but as it continues, it starts to become careless and sloppy, even unravelled much like her life.

Women are traditionally the victim in genre narrative. Discuss this with reference to one or more.

Women are often victimised in today’s society. The short story, “A Jury of Her Peers” represents this social atrocity successfully. The story, written by Susan Glaspell, features a common but disappointing aspect, a patriarchal society in which women are constantly bullied by their male counterparts. This is conveyed to the audience by the use of an array of narrative conventions. The story features two lawmen investigating a murder, their two wives have come along to the crime scene to gather belongings for the suspected murderer. The two wives start to piece together their own versions of the crime scene, but their husbands almost instantly discredit them and dismiss her efforts as a “trifle” because women are not capable of understanding the elements of a crime scene. The male lawmen use gender to deny the women their opinion and this happens frequently throughout the story. Another instance of women being victimised is during a short story, “The Whole Town Sleeping”. This story written by Ray Bradbury, features a group of women making their way to the cinemas to watch a movie, during a mysterious murderer is terrorising a small town. The women are seen as weak and defenceless by the males in this society, and are often told to go home and hide because of how weak and futile they appear to be. The women are the victims of violence inflicted by men, and constantly have to be alert and cautious. A dichotomy is created between the two genders of this town, the men are free to go out alone in the darkness because they can protect themselves and this is normal for men, while the women belong in their houses, locked away from any danger. These two stories represent the harsh reality majority of women face daily.