Comparing Glaspell's Trifles And A Jury Of Her Peers

Susan Glaspell wrote Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers,” both about the death of John Wright and the attempt to solve his murder. Throughout each work, the men repeatedly look down upon the women, which is ironic because in the end the women end up finding the most important piece of evidence that has the ability to solve the case. Even though both pieces are similar, “Trifles” is a dramatic play written through a script, and “A Jury of Her Peers” is a short story. Through both works, the importance of gender roles is apparent. Glaspell exposes the societal norms of the twentieth century, allowing others to see the need to break these stereotypes, which are easier to see through Trifles than “A Jury of Her Peers.” Throughout history, women were seen as weak individuals who had no mind of their own. Trifles strongly demonstrates this by explaining various actions the women took such as hiding the dead bird or speaking quieter when the men grew nearer, since the men mocked them and they made them …show more content…
Hale’s mind that the rocker didn’t look in the least like Minnie Foster—the Minnie Foster of twenty years before...dingy red…wooden rungs up the back, and the middle run was gone...chair sagged to one side.” Marriage can change a person and evidently changed Minnie Wright for the worse; it took her voice, independence and will to fight away. In order to fill this void, Mrs. Wright bought a bird as a way for her to get her voice back: to finally be heard again. Mr. Wright did not like the idea since he wanted to be in control of his home, a silent one at that: “No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird—a thing that sang. She used sing. He killed that, too.” (Mrs. Hale, page 566). This scene is powerful in Trifles because of the stage directions explaining how shocked and curious the women were. By not having Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale’s reactions present in “A Jury of Her Peers,” it is hard to truly understand what they were