Gender Roles in Susan Glaspells A Jury Of Her Peers and...

Gender Roles in Susan Glaspells A Jury Of Her Peers and Trifles Twentieth century society places few stereotypical roles on men and women. The men are not the sole breadwinners, as they once were, and the women are no longer the sole homemakers. The roles are often reversed, or, in the case of both parents working, the old roles are totally inconsequential. Many works of literature deal with gendered roles and their effect on society as a whole or on an individual as a person. A Jury Of Her Peers and Trifles, both written by Susan Glaspell, are works of literature that deal with socially gendered roles during the early nineteenth century. The two works are almost exactly alike in that the dialogue from A Jury Of Her†¦show more content†¦Wrights life in their hands to do with what they will. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale find the evidence needed to convict Minnie Wright and they suppress it. They were women who understood the plight of loneliness and the death of a beloved pet. Mrs. Hale understood that Mr. Wright was a hard man to li ve with and she knew that he had not only killed Mrs. Wrights bird but he had also killed the real Minnie Foster, the girl she had been. The men in the story, Sheriff Peters, Mr. Hale, and the young unmarried County Attorney, see only surface things. They believe that the motive for Johns murder lies in the bedroom or in the barn. The men flounder around ignorantly searching for something they will never find because they can not think as Minnie Wright did. If the women had told them about the discovery of the dead bird, they would probably laugh and say that the women needed to go back to their quilting and their jellies. The ragged and uneven sewing that suggests a misplaced state of mind in Minnie Wright would also have been laughed at. The men wanted to find something concrete that would easily convince an all male jury but they never would. To men, dead canaries are dead canaries, they would never read into it what Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Peters, and Mrs. Wright did. The gap between husband and wife is made even more apparent through dialogue. The men hear that Mrs. Wright was worrying about her preserves, and they laugh at her saying that she should beShow MoreRelatedSusan Glaspell s A Jury Of Her Peers1408 Words   |  6 PagesGrowing up in Iowa in the 1800s and 1900s, Susan Glaspell took inspiration for many of her stories from personal experiences. As a former courthouse reporter herself, Glaspell’s short story â€Å"A Jury of Her Peers† is based largely on her involvement with a murder case and a kitchen she recalled investigating. â€Å"A Jury of Her Peers,† a rendition of her early play, Trifles, focuses on the homicide of an abusive husband by his wife. While the men investigating the case overlook the various signs of abuseRead MoreAnalysis Of Susan Glaspells Trifles: Patriarchal Dominance997 Words   |  4 PagesPatriarchal Dominance Susan Glaspell’s a stage play Trifles filmed by Jasmine Castillo is based on the theme that two genders are separated by the roles they performance in society and their powers of execution. The story is about the terrible murder of Mr. Wright by his wife, and the women who found the evidence in farmer’s house decided to be silent and hide it. The women unquestionably have a strong motive to be quiet about their discovery. The discriminatory separation between two genders proves that womenRead MoreFeminism at Its Best810 Words   |  3 PagesGender roles have transformed throughout time, from the domestic womanhood of the 1920s to the breadwinners of the 21st century. 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Women’s role was guided by men and was simply related to their domestic environment; nothing but a caring wife and a busy mother. Unlike now, men looked at women as machines that had to provide comfort and mind relax to their husbands even if their hus bands did not provide that to them. To be specific, society inRead MoreThe Unbalanced Scale Between Men and Women940 Words   |  4 Pagesissue concerning gender has â€Å"consistently occupy the media and the public mind.† (Correll 20). It has established beliefs about the roles of men and women as a whole. â€Å"A man is expected always to be strong, impervious to pain, and especially to emotional stress, dominant in the role of lord and master; a woman is expected to be docile, submissive, passive, fulfilled in the role of subordinate.† (Fremon 129). It has been concluded for the longest time that women are the inferior gender, biologicallyRead MoreThe Deception of Trifles: Gender Roles in the Play by Glaspell1550 Words   |  7 PagesIn the 19th Century, women had different roles and treated differently compared to today’s women in American society. In the past, men expected women to carry out the duties of a homemaker, which consisted of cleaning and coo king. In earlier years, men did not allow women to have opinions or carry on a job outside of the household. As today’s societies, women leave the house to carry on jobs that allow them to speak their minds and carry on roles that men carried out in earlier years. In theRead MoreTiffles Annotated Bibliography1375 Words   |  6 PagesTrifles Annotated Bibliography Alkalay-Gut, Karen. Jury of Her Peers: The Importance of Trifles. Studies in Short Fiction 21 (Winter 1984): 1-9. In this deeper look into Trifles, Karen goes through the plot and discusses what you should pay more attention too. She describes the symbolism in some of the objects as well as explain the scenes and their little details. Karen finds the difference between male and female perceptions of judgment to be central to the play. She explains that youRead MoreSusan Glaspell s A Jury Of Her Peers Essay1789 Words   |  8 Pagesdefined as the treatment of someone or something with due fairness, but the fairness of a situation is often seen differently, depending upon the viewer. In Susan Glaspell’s, A Jury of Her Peers, the idea of who is capable to fairly judge a person, and therefore serve justice, is examined through the arrest of Mrs. Minnie Wright for the murder of her husband. As the sheriff and others go to the Wrights’ house, the suggestion is made that those empowered by law to cast judgement and those with an understanding