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What Is Susan Glaspell's Perception Of Women In A Jury Of Her Peers

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In Susan Glaspell’s 1917 short story “A Jury of Her Peers,” two women join their husbands and a county attorney to an isolated house where a farmer named John Wright has been choked to death in his bed with a rope. “A Jury of Her Peers” first uses irony to illustrate the contrast between male and female intuition. The men go to the farmhouse looking for clues to the murder of John Wright. Little did they know that the women would actually end up finding all of the clues. In the house, the men are looking for something out of the ordinary. They want to find an indication that Minnie has been provoked into killing her husband. The men do not think that their wives will be much help to the case after getting there. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters …show more content…

Many men seem to believe that women cannot comprehend and understand information the same way that they can. The story points more to the women’s thoughts and findings by proving that the women can find the evidence and come to a conclusion on their own. Male domination was the way of life when Susan Glaspell’s play “Trifles” was written. Men controlled most women throughout that time. In the play, Mr. Wright was made as a symbol of all the men in the community.
Social historian, Elaine Hedges, argues that such details would not have been lost upon Glaspell’s readers. On her own, Mrs. Peters discovers clues about the murder. Her findings lead her to pick up a basket filled with quilt pieces and then to notice something strange, a sudden row of badly sewn stitches. “What do you suppose she was so—nervous about?” asks Mrs. Peters. Mrs. Peters also spots many other clues on her own, including an empty birdcage and a broken door and hinge, making her believe that the cage has been roughly handled. Mr. Wright had put a stop to the birds singing, making the town quit again. Although, as a farmer’s wife, Mrs. Hale understands the loneliness of life on the farm. She found the bird to be a new and refreshing

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In the play, Minnie Foster was once a lively young lady before marrying her husband Mr. Wright. Mrs. Hale realizes he had taken everything she once loved away from her. Mr. Wright even took away her song bird that reminded her of the days she sang in the church choir. When Mr. Wright kills her song bird, she stands up for herself and decides he deserves the same

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In addition, the men also made a claim of “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell, 187). This shows the men in the play was stereotyping the women’s roles because they assumed that women only worry about the smaller things around the house. However, the women did agree that their role in society was very strenuous. In the Trifles, Mrs. Hale said, “There’s a great deal of work to be done on the farm” (Glaspell, 187). This quote suggests that the women agreed that their duty was mostly domestic work like taking care of the farm and the house and they also defended Mrs. Wright by saying that it takes a lot of effort to keep the farm neat and clean.

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The scene begins to unfolds in their minds. Mr. Wright yanking open the cage door, taking out the bird, and breaking its fragile neck was enough to make Mrs. Wright lash out, and in a heat of passion, kill her husband. As the trifles collect,  the women worry that the men will see their findings, and have what they need to prove Mrs. Wright guilty. Though the men believe her to be the murderer, the women are trying their best to hide the evidence that will prove it.

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Wright it is easy to tell that she is not at all upset about her husband’s death. When being asked about the situation she “laughed and pleated her skirt” (4). Mrs. Wright is compared to a bird that is found later in the story. The bird was found in a pretty box with marks around its neck. Hale and Peters say that the death of her bird would have been her motive if she actually was her husband’s murderer, but the author utilizes the bird and its broken cage to be a comparison to Mrs. Wright’s life.

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“A Jury of Her Peers” is a valuable resource for anyone curious to what life was like for women in the twentieth century for which it demonstrates women struggling to publish and define

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“A Jury of Her Peers” The short story “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell is about a murder investigation that has taken place in a lonesome-looking farm house of the Wrights. This story describes many challenges women faced during this time living in rural America. The story is given by two families, who help illustrate the murder suspect Minnie Wright. Insight on how Minnie’s life was used to help describe her and to help build the motive for the murder, and with that they were left to decide if she was guilty of the crime that was committed.

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Talking about Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters “the two characters begin to reconstruct the accused woman’s life. They do so through several means; memories of her, memories of their own lives (similar to hers in many ways), and speculation about her feelings and responses to the conditions of her life” (Holstein 283.) The two women immediately placed themselves in Minnie Wrights position. And while reconstructing Mrs. Wright life based on their own memories and emotions they acknowledge the murders missing clue “Minnie’s dead pet bird” (Holstein

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The death of her husband mirrors her existence in their marriage. Minnie had been confined by her marriage for years and longed to be free. Trifles, by Susan Glaspell is a one act play that reveals the suppression of women in the late

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Hale can be described as a leader which is a quality that Mrs. Peters does not possess. After discovering the dead bird, the women both decide to not inform the men of their discovery. When the men come back downstairs, the discover the empty birdcage. The county attorney asks the women if “ the bird has flown” (1119). Mrs. Hale quickly replies with “we think the—cat got it” (1119).

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