Trifles And A Jury Of Her Peers Analysis

The Pursuit of Justice for Women Through the
Comparison of Glaspell's Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers
Susan Glaspell first wrote the play "Trifles" and then a short time later followed up with the short story "A Jury of Her Peers". The story and the play contain many parallels such as: the setting, the plot, and the same characters. Even though they are very similar they have different titles which seem to be fitting for each. In the play, Hale states that women are constantly "worrying over trifles." Yet, these trifles are the evidence the men need to convict Minnie. "A Jury of Her Peers" is also fitting because the women had gathered the evidence against Minnie yet did not turn it in, and in fact, they became united as women to bring

Hale is a great depiction of the difference in the story and the play. The story reads:
Everyone in the kitchen looked at the rocker. It came into Mrs. Hale's mind that that rocker didn't look in the least like Minnie Foster--the Minnie Foster of twenty years before. It was a dingy red, with wooden rungs up the back, and the middle rung was gone, and the chair sagged to one side (Glaspell). The same setting in the play read: "...but I opened the door- this door and there in the rocker sat Mrs. Wright." (Glaspell). In "A Jury of Her Peers" the explicit details of the rocking chair tells the story of the woman the Minnie once was prior to her marriage to John. "How did she--look?" the county attorney was inquiring (Delbanco, Cheuse, 1005).
Well," said Hale, "she looked--queer." "How do you mean--queer?" "As he asked it he took out a note-book and pencil. Mrs. Hale did not like the sight of that pencil. She kept her eye fixed on her husband, as if to keep him from saying unnecessary things that would go into that note-book and make trouble. Hale did speak guardedly, as if the pencil had affected him too

Even Mr. Hale was concerned about Minnie. The play, however, does not share the same emotions of how Mr. Hale's words could effect Minnie. The story has a greater influence than the play, invoking certain feelings about justice for abused women. The lack of details in the play "Trifles" is really an injustice to how the readers should feel about Minnie. The complex details that are lacking in the play are displayed freely in the short story "A Jury of Her Peers." Adversely, the story doesn't leave much for the reader to decide how to feel, it almost tells one how to feel because the detail is so engaging. That was just the point that Glaspell was trying to make though when she decided to turn the play into a story. It was the story, rather than her play, that drove her message home; the pursuit of justice for women in a man's