Jury Of Her Peers And Trifles: An Analysis

Humans, for all their existence, have twisted the truth. They take the reality at their fingertips and use it to weave tales that romanticize, dramatize, or mythicize what really happened. Susan Glaspell was an integral reporter for the Des Moines Daily News, especially during the December of 1900 where she reported on the Hossack Murder. She followed up her coverage of this case with the one-act play “Trifles,” later adapted to the short story “A Jury of Her Peers.” Glaspell substituted some of the reality with fictional elements, creating a mesmerizing murder mystery that feels eerily realistic. Nevertheless, between Glaspell's’ articles and “A Jury of Her Peers”, there are many similarities and differences within their events, characters, …show more content…
Firstly, Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Peters, and their husbands were most likely fictional; but the question is, why would Glaspell create fictional characters to tell the story through? Glaspell most likely wanted to create a stand-in for her readers, to experience the same things as the jury during the actual case. She wanted to give the stand-in characters gradual clues to solve the mystery, and the reader would be figuring it all out at the same time. This further invests the reader in the story; instead of telling them what happened, she lets her audience figure it out for themselves with the characters, and this a very stylistic choice for the fictional narrative. Secondly, there are many differences with the Hossack family. Rather than being a solitary, childless family, the Hossacks had four children and Mr. Hossack was a “prominent (..), highly respected” member of society (Glaspell 1.) This change allows Glaspell to twist the story of why the wife murdered the husband, and the nonexistence of these real people creates a huge difference between what actually happened and the story that Glaspell wrote. The character changes create significant differences between the short story and reality, but it is the characters’ characterizations that truly makes the …show more content…
For starters, we have Mr. Hossack who is a well-liked farmer in his town who “leaves a wife and large family” (Glaspell 1.) But in the context of the story, he is Mr. Wright: a closed-off man, living in a hollow where you can’t see the road, and the other characters drop frequent hints that him and his wife have a cold relationship. Mr. Hossack and Mr. Wright both seemed to have troubling behaviors towards their wives, but Mr. Wright is characterized more as a villain, and Mr. Hossack the victim. This villainization is evident when the two women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, are thinking out loud about how he treated his wife and transformed her from pretty Minnie Foster to drab Mrs. Wright. Suddenly, the mood shifts to become accusatory on Mr. Wright, who had alienated and abused his wife. The reader has an easier time sympathizing with someone who was continuously a victim of abuse, rather than someone who is suddenly victim to public disdain due to committing a crime. Similarly, there’s Mrs. Hossack, Mrs. Wright’s real-life inspiration. She is a woman who frequently argues with her husband over he sons’ “shortcomings” or “waywardness; who most likely had “a desire to get rid of her husband”; and even may be “insane” (Glaspell 1.) In the story, though, there is Mrs. Wright who is frequently alone; she cherishes small “trifles” like her pet

Show More

Related Documents: Jury Of Her Peers And Trifles: An Analysis

Literary Lens