Susan Glaspell’s short story “A Jury of Her Peers” is based upon her earlier stage play Trifles, a play that highlights the unequal status of men and women that existed in the early 20th century. In Trifles, the author uses visual symbols and dialogue surrounding the murder of a local farmer by his wife to develop the idea that a chasm of misunderstanding exists between men and women. Note that the titles of short stories have quote marks and that the titles of plays are in italics. The introduction summarizes the plot of the play in one line and then moves right to the thesis. The thesis is SPECIFIC: this essay will examine images and dialogue and their role in the theme that men and women don't understand one another in this play. The title of the essay is NOT a sentence. The essay meets the requirement of a minimum of 500 words.

Immediately upon entry into the crime scene, a lonely disheveled farmhouse nestled deep in an isolated hollow, the players are confronted with the harsh, duplicitous visual images that not only set the stage for the murder but also establish the state of mind of the farmer’s wife, Mrs. Wright. Those images, a table half-cleaned, dirty dishes scattered around the sink, a quilt left unfinished, and an empty birdcage, not only accentuate Mrs. Wright’s tormented condition as she dwelt for twenty years under the repressive thumb of a harsh, cold husband, but they also attempt to tell the story of a life of freedom and frivolity that existed prior to her marriage. The first body paragraph examines the images in detail that are just mentioned in the introduction. The topic sentence makes a point; it is not a fact from the story. The verbs are literary present tense, not past tense. This paragraph could be improved by text support in the form of quotes from the play that reveal the oppressive conditions under Mr. Wright and show Minnie's earlier, happy life.

During the course of the play, the men can be found moving on and off stage as they search for clues as well as a rationale for this heinous crime. Between looking in the upstairs bedroom, where Mr. Wright is found strangled in his bed, to the barn (another masculine domain where clues must certainly abound), the men spend little time in the kitchen, the domain of women—preferring to leave the ladies there—just in case they happen to stumble upon a clue. Patronizing the women, County Attorney Henderson says, “And keep your eyes out, Mrs. Peters, for anything that might be of use. No telling; you women might come upon a clue to the motive—and that’s the thing we need” (Glaspell 5). Adding insult to injury, Mr. Hale continues the thought: “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” (Glaspell 5). But it is in the kitchen that the real investigation of the heart and soul of a caged woman takes place. As Mrs. Peters, the wife of a sheriff who wears his badge on his chest and on his sleeve, and Mrs. Hale remark about the room, they feel as if they can relive Minnie Wright’s life in that desolate place and feel the pain she must have endured. Exhausted at that thought, Mrs. Hale considers sitting down in the rocker for a spell, but stops short: “Something kept her from sitting down in that chair. She straightened—stepped back, and half turned away, stood looking at it, seeing the woman who had sat there ‘pleatin’ at her apron’” (Glaspell 6). They continue to find clues: dingy clothes, a broken stove, a tattered gray shaw. It is when they look in Mrs. Wright’s sewing basket, however, that they find the most startling evidence of the horror that Minnie lived through. In a small box at the bottom of the basket is a bird with its neck rung, its lifeless body a surrogate voice for the silent screams that echoed from the walls of that house every day. The parenthetical citations are correct, and they are integrated into the context of the paragraph. They support the claim of the thesis that Glaspell used dialogue to show misunderstanding between the men and women. Insult to injury is a cliché, however, and could be phased in a better way.

Through the course of the play, the men continue to plod around in the dark, unaware of the incriminating evidence that surrounds them--evidence that shows not only the criminal act of cold-blooded murder but also evidence of a life crying out for help. With each moment, the men move further from the womanly "trifles" that would implicate Mrs. Wright while Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters come to understand not only Mrs. Wright but also themselves through their attention to such clues. Not only do they uncover her motive for the murder, but, for the first time in twenty years, they finally know Mrs. John Wright. The conclusion makes a final point about the thesis--the play shows not only men's lack of ability to understand women but also women's ability to understand one another.

© 2004 Christopher Nixon