Overview of “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell
Susan Glaspell was an American journalist and novelist (1876-1948), author of plays, novels and mostly short stories, which she wrote in numerous magazines and newspapers. Trifles is her most successful play and Fidelity, perhaps her most popular book.
Growing up in Iowa in the 1800s and 1900s, Susan Glaspell was influenced by many of her personal experiences. As a former court reporter herself, Glaspell's short story "A Jury of Her Peers" is primarily based on her interest in the murder case and the kitchen she recalled investigating.
"The Jury of Her Peers" is an example of early feminist literature. And now, it gets mainly favorable reviews from reviewers, due to a wide range of relevant issues covered by it. Just one reading will not be enough to reveal the full promise and secret significance of the plot. The symbolism and the particular style of writing are well reflected in this analysis of "The Trifles: The Jury of Her Peers." This short story was adapted from Glaspell's one-act play Trifles, but it features the same characters, but the plot and writing are more intense in the short story than the structure itself allowing the writer to approach the reader on a deeper psychological level.
The initial scene uncovered to us in the novel– the story starts in the papers – the female characters, Mrs. Solidness and Mrs. Peters, had the option to tackle the secret of who killed John Wright, regardless of whether their male partners couldn't do as such. In the two books, Glaspell shows how the young men, Sheriff Peters, Mr. Robust, and the County Attorney, neglect the main territory of the house, the kitchen. Eventually, the ladies are the ones who discover the signs that lead to the end that Minnie Wright, the spouse of John Wright, killed him. Both of Glaspel's female characters show the boldness to venture into a male-ruled calling by assuming the job of a criminologist.
"The Jury of Her Peers" and "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell are the same novels, but in different literary styles. Glaspell had only to make small changes in the adaptation of Trifles to a short novel. As in any of her other literary work, the lead character has never been seen. The setting is Minnie Wright's Iowa farm. Minnie was charged with killing her husband. Her complicity of committing a felony is never put into question. Three men—a sheriff, a county judge, and a neighbor—came to collect facts to justify the case. Two women—the sheriff's wives and the neighbor's wives—are with the guys. Their goal is to pick up Minnie's effects.
"The Jury of Her Peers" was published and put in America in the early 1900s. During this period, women were constrained by rigid social norms and generally relegated to the domestic sphere. Various instances of narrative expression act as markers of this moment. Glaspel uses her story to condemn patriarchy and gender subordination. In this way, Glaspel's story remains important to the issues of identity and discrimination that still exist today.
These stories are based on the stereotyping of women in society in the early 1900s. Women's positions as anything more than homemakers have been downgraded. The stories revealed how the adults, at that time, never considered how hard the women worked to do all the household chores every day. These reports have shown women who have been treated as infants who have no meaning in the economy or anything else but serving men.
Mr. Hale states that women are "used to worry about trifles." This critical quotation identifies the manner in which men view the needs and worries of women in this short story. Men see women as involved merely in trivial items, such as the canning fruit jars that Minnie Wright believes will be destroyed in her absence following her incarceration, and the quilt that Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale plan to carry to Minnie's prison to keep her occupied. Trifles, a term misapplied by men to everything that interests women, symbolizes the blindness of men to the value of these very things. It's the "trifles" that expose the reason behind Minnie's murder, the piece of crucial evidence that men search. Since men discard women and women's desires as "trifles," they disregard things that could expose the truth about Minnie, her condition, and her acts, as well as the truth about patriarchy in their communities.
The tale profoundly moves us with the harshness of what is intuitive, what is implied and what is not said, with the coldness of the home, with the sense of remorse over what could be prevented, with the profound isolation that is felt between the four walls of a sad and cold house. There are no amusing scenes in her Peers' Jury, no aggression, no aggressive words, just profound isolation and sorrow.
A jury of her colleagues, written in 1917, when the public life of women was still very small and limited to the private domain, when they did not vote or be part of a jury, ... It can be translated as an assault on this state of affairs, on this condition of alienation and confinement of women, however, in the same way, it can be read as a call to attention to the suffering of a society that allows for a single perspective: the man.