A Jury of Her Peers is a play written by Susan Glaspell. The play is based on the murder of John Wright, and the subsequent trial of his wife, Minnie. A Jury of Her Peers explores the relationships between the women in the community, and how they are affected by the murder.
The play was first performed in 1916, and it has been widely praised for its feminist themes. A Jury of Her Peers is a precursor to the feminist movement, and it is considered to be one of Glaspell’s most important works. The play is set in the rural community of Dickson County, Iowa. The action takes place in the kitchen of the Wright home, and in the county courthouse.
The play opens with Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters arriving at the Wright home to help Mrs. Wright pack her belongings. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are old friends, and they reminisce about the good times they had together when they were younger.
As they look around the kitchen, they notice that it is very clean and orderly. This strikes them as odd, considering that Mrs. Wright is accused of murdering her husband.
They also find a box containing some dead canaries. This upsets Mrs., who used to keep canaries herself. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are called to testify at the trial of Mrs. Wright. They are asked about Mrs. Wright’s character, and whether or not she was a good wife.
They both testify that Mrs. Wright was a good wife, and that they never saw her mistreat her husband. The jury finds Mrs. Wright guilty of murder, and she is sentenced to death by hanging.
A Jury of Her Peers is a powerful play that explores the themes of gender inequality and domestic violence. The play is an important work of feminist theatre, and it is sure to provoke thought and discussion.
A big theme in the play is sexism and how women were not treated equally back then. A big example of this is when the men go into the house to investigate and the women are left out because they “would just get in the way”. The women go into the house after the men leave and start finding little things that give them a better understanding of what Minnie Wright was going through.
This story is a great example of early feminist literature because it speaks out against how unjustly women were being treated during that time. It also gives a voice to those who didn’t have one and helps show that women are just as capable as men, even though they may not be given the same opportunities.
In our current day and age, the title “A Jury of Her Peers” is a more accurate one. It explains things better when her fellow jurors considered the little aspects of her life and understood what frame of mind she was in at the time of the occurrence. You can see where it’s comparable to if you compared the narrative to a real trial: The men acted as prosecutors and the women as defenders. The men never stopped in the kitchen to inquire about what had been discovered by the ladies. They were not attempting to find out anything regarding her married existence.
The men were not looking at the small things in her life. The women looked at all those things and they understood what she had been going through. The play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is a story about how two women help to solve a murder case by piecing together the little trifles in the victim’s life that the men had overlooked. The title of the play, “Trifles”, is significant because it is symbolic of how the men in the story overlook the important details in the victim’s life that eventually help to solve the case.
The women, on the other hand, take notice of these trifles and piece them together to form a clearer picture of what was happening in the victim’s life. This is significant because it emphasises the importance of considering all aspects of a situation in order to gain a clear understanding of it.
The play was written in 1916, which was a time when women were not given much consideration in society. They were often disregarded and their opinions were not taken into account. The fact that Glaspell wrote a story that gives prominence to the thoughts and insights of women is significant because it challenges the norms of society at that time. It shows that women are capable of contributing valuable insights and that their voices should be heard.
Ultimately, “Trifles” is a story about the importance of paying attention to the small details in life. The men in the story overlook these details, but the women take notice of them and use them to piece together what is happening in the victim’s life. This is significant because it emphasises the importance of considering all aspects of a situation in order to gain a clear understanding of it. It also challenges the norms of society at that time by giving prominence to the thoughts and insights of women.
Someone who doesn’t know how to solve the problem is the woman in this story. This was a time when women didn’t have the right to vote and had no voice in society. When the men left the kitchen, one of them said, “But would ladies know what to do if they discovered something?” (Glaspell, 541) The women paid attention to details in the kitchen and mentioned that Minnie Foster used to be so joyful.
But, when she got married to Mr. Wright she stopped singing. You could tell that something happened in that house to make her change from a happy person to a resentful one. A clue that the women found was a quilt that Mrs. Wright was working on before she was arrested. The quilt had not been finished and it looked like she was in the middle of sewing it when something had happened. The women also found some dead canaries in the house.
Mr. Wright had been mean to his wife and wouldn’t let her have any friends over or do anything fun. He also didn’t let her play the piano anymore because he said that it made too much noise. The women put two and two together and realized that Mrs. Wright killed her husband out of resentment for how he was treating her. They also found out that she had been planning on leaving him and taking the kids with her.
The prosecutor, Mr. Henderson, didn’t believe that a woman could have done it and decided to not prosecute her. This was a time when women really didn’t have a voice and so the men made all of the decisions for them. Glaspell wrote this story to show how women were treated at the time and how they were able to find clues that the men missed because they weren’t looking at things from a woman’s perspective.
