In 1916, Susan Glaspell wrote the play Trifles and later reproduced it into the short story “A Jury of Her Peers.” Both the story and the play tell of a murder investigation where women uncover the evidence needed for solving the crime. In the mean time, the men are busy overlooking this evidence and criticizing the women for paying attention to petty details.
Susan Glaspell was a pioneer in the movement toward giving women further equality with men. She expressed her views at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was actually before the women’s movement. Glaspell supported feministic views such as birth control, women’s suffrage, and equal rights as men (LHM 1). She wrote many short stories about women and feminism and many were produced in women’s magazines. Combining her own beliefs with the values of her readers, she wrote about love, money, social classes, evil and suffering. One of Glaspell’s beliefs is “love and money are the most desirable things in the world, but the greater of these is love”(Baechler 188). Glaspell frequently revealed her feministic views through her works using the title, character’s names and personalities and the overall plot of the story. “A Jury of Her Peers” and Trifles both harbor each of the methods, clearly showing Glaspell’s feminism.
One way Glaspell reveals her feministic views is through the title of the play. She chooses the title Trifles to convey the image of a small, insignificant object or action. The women in the story are looked upon by the men as insignificant and that women are only concerned with trivial matters. Louis Hale, a neighbor of the murder victim and assistant to the sheriff’s investigation, remarks “women are used to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell 77). It is ironic; however, that through the “trifles” the women reveal the conclusive evidence the men are unable to find.
Feminism is also presented in the play through the names Glaspell chooses for her characters. John and Minnie Wright are the two characters the play is centered around. Mr. and Mrs. Wright represent “Mr. and Mrs. Right” of today’s society; however, they are quite the opposite. The last name Wright suggests that John thinks of himself as “Mr. Right.” Minnie is forced to give up the life that she lived before simply because John told her to, as with her singing. He believes everything he says and does is right, and his wife should abide by his rules. He seems to think that just because “he [doesn’t] drink, and [keeps] his word as well as most…and [pays] his debts” he is the ideal husband (Glaspell 201-2). Minnie Wright’s name is important in more than one way. Minnie connotes the word “mini” which represents the relationship Minnie has with her husband. Minnie is forced to do whatever her husband tells her to; she lives completely under his control. Minnie is also a characteristic of women’s “tiny” role in society. Her name reflects all of women’s inferiority to men. “…Between the Wrights and men and women in general... it is only a matter of time before women who are forced to subjugate themselves to a male dominated society get fed up and seek revenge on their oppressors” (Bourn 1).
Minnie’s maiden name is “Foster,” which means to encourage, promote, to harbor or nurse oneself. Minnie nurses herself back from oppression by killing her husband to free her caged spirit. The other women in the story refer to Minnie as “Minnie Foster” when they recall her happier, livelier past. “I hear she used to wear pretty clothes and be lively when she was Minnie Foster…” is how Mrs. Hale remembers Minnie (Glaspell 75). “The image of Minnie Foster is used to show, by contrast, what John Wright ha[s] done to Minnie” (Bourn 1).
Two characters in the story are not given first names, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. Taking the names of their husbands plays an important role of Glaspell’s feministic views in the story. The men no longer let their wives carry their own names because they are now property of the men. These names prove that women can only be defined in society through their husbands (Bourn 1). The sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peters, is thought of as just that-“the sheriff’s wife,” not her own person. “The county attorney even says ‘for that matter a sheriff’s wife is married to the law’”(Bourn1). Mrs. Peters reiterates her position by saying “the law is the law”(Glaspell 73). However, she later stands up for herself and all women by concealing the evidence that would convict Minnie Wright of the murder of her husband. “Their allegiance to sisterhood is stronger than that to marriage (MaGill 3484). The women, not having first names, are given an unimportant place in their society. They remain nameless and faceless to those around them.
Susan Glaspell uses the quilting as another symbolism of women uniting to fight against men’s suppression. She uses the term “knotting” to show that Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale have joined together to defend the case against Minnie Wright. “Quilting points to another key metaphor in defining the importance of women’s work as sisterhood” (MaGill 3484). In most communities, women gather together to help each woman finish all of her quilting. Mrs. Wright, however, is forced to complete her quilting on her own. This symbolizes the struggle she faced with a tedious, controlling husband. In both cases, quilting and an abusive husband, Minnie has to take matters into her own hands. “Although Minnie Wright’s community of sisters neglected her in the past, they now rally together to save her life” (MaGill 3484). The women realize the hard life that Minnie Wright has lived compared the life that they have lived. They decide to join together to fight for the freedom of Minnie Wright, freedom from prison and a controlling marriage. This joining together shows that Minnie Wright is not alone in the fight to regain her freedom and all other women sympathize with her lifestyle because they share the same way of life.
Glaspell parallels the men and women’s reaction to Minnie Wright’s untidy household to portray how women notice the important things that are overlooked by men because women are superior. Upon viewing the broken jars of fruit, the women feel sorry for Minnie Wright because of all the hard work and time that she put into making the preserves. However, the men simply put down Mrs. Wright for not keeping a clean household. This shows that men only think that women’s roles are none other than wives, mothers, and homemakers. “Besides showing how women know that trifles are not insignificant, Glaspell dramatizes gender differences to foreshadow the women’s rebellion” (MaGill 3484).
Glaspell never intends to conceal her feminist views in the play Trifles and the short story “A Jury of Her Peers.” It is her full intent that readers realize the oppression women suffered during that time and were unable to get away from except by desperate measures. Minnie Wright had reached the end of her rope when John Wright murders her bird by strangling it. She, in turn, strangles the life out of John in the way he strangles her spirit. By using the title, character names, and metaphors, Glaspell gives the image of not only Minnie’s oppression by her husband, John Wright, but the lives of all women who were suppressed by their male dominators. Glaspell uses Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” to persuade women to use their inner strength to break free from the oppression over them by their male suppressors. “Trifles is a wonder, a neat little machine that continues to work perfectly. Its picture women’s isolation in a bleak world is finely drawn, but the strength of the play is in its solidity, in the neat unraveling of the mystery. It is of all Glaspell work the only one where intent and achievement meet” (Baechler 187).
Works Cited
Baechler, Lea, and Walton Litz, eds. American Writers: A Collection of Literary
Biographies. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1991.
Bourn, Bryan D. “A Feministic Criticism of Susan Glaspell’s Trifles.” Pp.3. on-line.
Internet. 9 April 2001. www.hongik.edu/~yhyo/glaspell.html.
Glaspell, Susan. “A Jury of Her Peers.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and
Writing. Eds. Edgar V. Roberts, Henry E. Jacobs. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1998. 182-196.
L.H.M. “Historical and Literary Contexts.” www.scribblingwomen.org/sbjury.html.
www.google.com. 18 April 2001. pp 3.
MaGill, Frank ed. Masterplots II: Short Stories Series Supplement. California: Salem
Press, 1996.
Registered Members, login
Join now, it's free
Property of EssaySwap.com
