A Jury of Her Peers - Research Paper Example

Trifles, “A Jury of her Peers” Trifles, also referred to as “a jury of her peers”, is a one act play that was written bySusan Glaspell in the year 1916, and it highlights the subservient roles played by women in male dominated societies. Two men, the Sheriff, and the County Attorney open the play, which is set in the socio-economic upheavals of the patriarchal American society in the wake of the 20th century (Al-Khalili 132), and the plot of the story revolves around an investigation of the murder of John Wright. The victim’s wife, Minnie, is the main suspect of the murder, and the two men focus their investigations on finding incriminating evidence that might tie her to the murder of her husband John Wright. These investigations are done in the presence of two other women, Mrs Peters and Mrs Hale’s, who eventually stumble on the evidence that proves her guilt in the murder case, the body of a canary that had been subjected to the same fate as the diseased because it had been murdered by its neck being wrung (Glaspell). However, the women sympathize with Minnie because they understand her motives for committing the murder; thus, they conspire to hide the evidence against her instead of pointing it out to the men. Trifles is a classic feminist drama that highlights the predicament of women at the hands of men in a society such as Minnie’s; female characters such as Mrs Peters and Mrs Hale to sympathize with their fellow woman because they understand her motives and share her suffering. The male characters despise their women so much, that they overlook the kitchen area and all the crucial clues that could be leading to the motive of the murder as sheer ‘trifles’ and instead focus their investigation on solid material facts (Suzy 283) Their cold and emotionless approach to the investigations clouds their judgment because they are biased in thinking that the kitchen as a woman’s territory cannot yield any helpful links, thus, they direct their investigations in areas of male dominance such as the barn and the bedroom. The women in this society are in charge of the kitchen, and the attitude of the men towards the kitchen as a woman’s territory indicates that they disregard the importance of women’s life in Minnie’s society. Ironically, it is the men’s disdain of the crucial role played by women in their society by their unwillingness to explore the women’s domain that prevents them from finding the most significant piece of evince that could have solved the murder . The men demonstrate their scorn of the kitchen as women’s domain by kicking some of the kitchenware in derision and treating the women with condescension; the Sheriff dismisses the kitchen by saying it had nothing important but kitchen stuff. Unity among the women in solidarity with their fellow kind highlights their shared understanding of the ruthlessness women are subjected to in Minnie’s society; the women as victims of male brutality and dominance unite to look out for each other as sisters. The common bond of affection and understanding enables them to protect themselves from the brutalities visited upon their kind by the patriarchal society that often crushes the very life out of their bodies. The men enjoy taunting the women and poking fun at their fussiness, which they disregard as mere ‘trifles’(Marsh 202), yet the women huddle together at the door in consolation with Minnie whom they see as the victim because they understand her difficult situation as a woman. The caged bird symbolizes the victim’s wife in particular and the women in general, as having been repressed and silenced by their male counterparts; the women point out that Minnie used to be a soulful singer prior to her marriage to Mr. Wright. Minnie had become silent because her husband forbade her from singing or making merry by doing pleasurable things; eventually, the strangling of the caged bird, her songbird companion, was a physical manifestation of her spiritual death (Russell 89). Marriage had changed Minnie by silencing her voice and snatching her individual identity as a woman; the women point out that she was a sweet and pretty but a bit timid bird to her husband; this indicates the repression of women in Minnie’s society. The women are inferior to the male, and appear as shadows in the background because their individual identities do not matter; for instance, the Sheriff’s wife is married to the law, thus, the domineering male identity blurs the female identity in this society. Minnie, on the other hand, is embodied in her kitchen and her sewing, areas that the men scorn as unimportant female spheres; additionally, her preserve jars are broken by the freezing weather, which symbolizes the harsh domestic environment that breaks her spirit. The harsh external environment also indicates the coldness that undermines humanity by inciting characters not to feel empathetic towards each other as in the case of Mr. Wright towards Minnie. In this regard, Mr. Wright’s hard-heartedness overshadows his human emotional fibers and does not leave room for empathy, thus, he mistreats his wife psychologically by denying her happiness and silences her voice respectively (Russell 88). The law and cold rationality embodied by the male characters in the play also contrasts thoroughly with the female character’s intuitiveness, thus, questioning the significance of superficial rational thinking. The title of the play “Trifles” highlights the perception of men towards the role of women in the society; the men’s dismissal of the significance of the role played by women causes them to relegate them to inferior positions and their opinions do not count. The setting of the play in the kitchen, which is considered by the men as a women’s sphere, establishes a melancholic and meditative mood that runs throughout the play; this choice of setting by the writer is calculated to subvert the conventional social structures that undermine women. The writer deliberately sets the play in an informal, domestic, and female domain instead of official public male domains of the 2oth century American society to highlight its focus on the plight of women in this society. The male characters dominate the first one-third portion of the play and the women only trail behind as distant figures, thus highlighting the social disconnect between the two genders in this society that increasingly becomes conspicuous as events unfold. Unlike the men who strike as confident and businesslike, the women are timid and nervous, therefore, highlighting their nous of distress and isolation from important matters in society that undermines their contribution as mere ‘trifles’. The passivity of women is attributable to the forces of society that relegate women to inferior positions at the nadir of the social structure, as mere spectators rather than active players; the fact that the play insists on referring to the women by their husband’s last names also indicates the imposition of the male identity in the female self. Insofar as the position of women is concerned, the women seem to be aware of the limiting male perceptions of their roles in society, thus, they demonstrate deliberate resistance to the conventional status quo imposed on them by the males. For instance, the women decline an invitation to join the men at the stove, a feminine sphere, thus, indicating their revolt against society and the men by refusing to occupy their traditional position by the hearth. The outspoken Mrs Hale vehemently rejects the male perception of the world as depicted in the men’s criticism of Mrs Wright’s poor home keeping skills; Mrs Hill asserts that Mrs Wright might have been the root cause to the problem, and that the poor state of the kitchen should not be blamed on the poor woman. The women further observe that the lack of warmth in the house, as foreshadowed in the cold external temperatures, was more than Minnie could handle alone (Manuel 57); her house was a cheerless cage that shattered her mental preserves, and the lack of a telephone in the house further isolated her from the outside world. In conclusion, the play is essentially about the competing gender roles and perspectives of both men and women in a hostile male-dominated society like the early 20th century American society. The writer explores the social divisions in Minnie’s society, which are established and maintained by the strict gender roles that both define and distinguish men from women; in this society, the contributions of women are not only unnoticed, but also completely undervalued by their male counterparts who view the women and their business as mere trifles. Nonetheless, the writer goes further than merely highlighting the gender differences by invoking the audience to interrogate people’s knowledge of situations and their interpretation of their own and other people’s explanations of situations (Suzy 282). The women conceal valuable evidence against Mrs Wright because they empathize with her pain and they feel her actions were justified (Al-Khalili 135), unlike the County Attorney and the Sheriff, who would have had a very different approach; in this regard, the writer highlights the different ways of knowing and seeing that between the genders. Works Cited Suzy, Clarkson Holstein. "Silent Justice in a Different Key: Glaspell's "Trifles"." The Midwest Quarterly 44.3 (2003): 282-90. Al-Khalili, Raja. "Representations of Rural Women in Susan Glaspell's Trifles." Studies in Literature and Language 6.1 (2013): 132-5. Russell, Judith Kay. "Glaspell's Trifles." The Explicator 55.2 (1997): 88-90. Marsh, Kelly A. "Dead Husbands and Other "Girls' Stuff": The Trifles in Legally Blonde." Literature/Film Quarterly 33.3 (2005): 201-6. Glaspell, Susan. Trifles a play in one-act. one-act-plays.com. n.d . Web. 5th Nov, 2013. Manuel, Carme. Susan Glasspell’s Trifles (1916): Women’s Conspiracy of Silence beyond the Melodrama of beset Womanhood. Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos no.7 (2000), pp. 55-65 Read More