Susan Glaspells Trifles and Jury of Her Peers, how the roles of the women in the stories represent womens roles/place in society at the time the stories were written compared to now

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23 November 2007

Susan Glaspell 's Trifles and Jury of Her Peers

Introduction

The role of women has for long interested numerous talented authors The development of our society was marked by changes in social attitudes towards women , and their place in the society . Speaking about women in literature , we often turn our heads towards Kate Chopin , forgetting about other prominent . Susan Glaspell was not recognized as a feminist author until the end of the 1970s . Her works are interesting in

terms of a woman 's position in the then society against the position women currently hold . It will be interesting to re-consider the role of women in Glaspell 's works Trifles and Jury of Her Peers

The time during which Susan Glaspell was creating her works was known for having strict boundaries between private and public lives of people However , this time has also become the start of erasing these boundaries

No longer relegated to the home , but not yet accepted in the marketplace , women were caught in a position of liminality , pinned between the traditional female and male world by the expectations of both (Shafer 92

Susan Glaspell 's brilliant works have become the source of profound research of how law and justice were opposed to the gender differences They have become the symbols of the female ethos , and of the gradual transformation of the relationships between women - from cold distance to concealing the evidence of the crime . While it is possible to admit that Glaspell 's stories were the evidence of the brilliant gender story they are better be called feminist , because Glaspell 's stories do not depict women and men neutrally the author emphasizes the socially inferior (but in reality , superior ) position of a woman during that time

While the two works obviously relate to the same plot and are the two s of the one case , the murder of John Wright by his wife they supplement each other and make different emphases on the one and the same case . Speaking the name of the story symbolizes the negligence men displayed towards women . What men traditionally considered being trifles (the fact that preserves would be gone due to the very cold weather during the night , was very meaningful and important for women This lack of understanding between the two genders risked being turned into a real conflict . In case with Minnie Wright and her husband the conflict had far reaching consequences . As for Jury of Her Peers , the emphasis in this story is also noticed in its title : the two women (virtually , Minnie 's juries ) have become the expressions of the women 's search for fairness (Makowsky 24 . This fairness was also lacking in the then women-men relationships , and women were often treated as mere housewives , without any regard to them as humans . The small dead bird with its head twisted was the biggest proof that men lacked hearts warmth and understanding of their women . A small bird...