The Many Crimes Committed In Glaspell's Plays

English 103 Blog

Discussion Questions

#1, and #2

"Trifles" and "A Jury of Her Peers" By Susan Glaspell

1) Which “version” do you prefer – “A Jury of Her Peers” or Trifles?
Why? Which elements seem better demonstrated/conveyed in the version of your choice? (You will need to provide a basic interpretation to answer)
Susan Glaspell, the author of the play, “Trifles,” and the short story, “A Jury of Her Peers,” wrote these two pieces to demonstrate how everyone can be guilty of crimes – whether they be defined by the law or not. Both of these stories do a very good job at conveying such an important message by staging a very strong plotline. Minnie Foster, one of the characters in both of the stories, is under arrest for the murder of her husband. There are five people going through her home, looking for possible evidence: Mrs. Peters, the wife of the sheriff, Mr. Peters, the sheriff, Mr. Henderson, the young county attorney, Mr. Hale, the person who stumbled upon John Wright’s dead body, and Mrs. Hale, the wife of Mr. Hale. Mr. Hale starts explaining to Mr. Henderson exactly what happened when he came to visit that night – Minnie was acting very strange, and she did not even hide the fact that her husband was in the other room – dead from a rope around his neck. After the proper authorities are brought in, Minnie is taken away, and these people go through her house to look for evidence. The men do most of the searching while the two women start to discuss what happened to her, and how tough her life was with John Wright. As they get deep into the discussion, they spill their guilt out to one another about how they should have been better neighbors to Minnie, and how that is also a crime that should be punishable. They go through her things, and find a quilt that she was working on. It is a beautiful log cabin pattern quilt, and is neatly done, except for one area of the quilt. This one area bothers Mrs. Hale, and she starts to undo it and fixes it. When she looks for the sewing box, she and Mrs. Peters find an unexpected and unpleasant surprise: a dead pet bird with a broken neck. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters know that this is an important piece of evidence, but decide that they have never seen this evidence and conceal it – for Minnie’s sake. The play and the story both end this way, leaving the reader to ponder a few things for themselves.
The “version” of the play that I preferred was “A Jury of Her Peers.” This is my favorite version because it contained a more “in-depth look” at Mrs. Hale’s and Mrs. Peter’s emotions, and it explained a little bit more of the story in depth than “Trifles.” Glaspell gives us a more “in-depth” look at Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters through the use of vivid imagery through their conversations. Readers of the story get to see the guilt of these two women, and how they consider their actions crimes when it came to being bad neighbors to Minnie Foster: “I could’ve come,” retorted Mrs. Hale shortly. “I stayed away because it weren’t cheerful -- and that’s why I ought to have come. I’ -- she looked around – “I’ve never liked this place. Maybe because it’s down in a hollow and you don’t see the road. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a lonesome place, and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now- -” She could not put it into words” (Glaspell 273). From examining Mrs. Hale’s side of the conversation, it is clear that she is feeling quite guilty for not being a friend – or even a good neighbor – to Minnie Foster. She is realizing that a lack of friends and neighbors to check on her or to be there for her when she needed it could have caused Minnie Foster to turn to desperate measures, especially when it came to her destructive husband, John Wright. Mrs. Peters tries to comfort Mrs. Hale throughout the whole story (due to the fact that she did not know Minnie Foster too well), until Mrs. Hale brings up something about how the bird being “still” could have triggered something in Minnie. This really affected Mrs. Peters and she explains to Mrs. Hale that she understands what “stillness” is: “I know what stillness is,” she said, in a queer, monotonous voice. “When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died -- after he was two years old -- and me with no other then- -” Mrs. Hale stirred. “How soon do you suppose they'll be through looking for the evidence?” “I know what stillness is,” repeated Mrs. Peters, in just that same way. Then she too pulled back. “The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale,” she said in her tight little way” (Glaspell 278). This particular incident in the story triggers something inside Mrs. Peters, and she understands what Minnie Foster is going through for a brief moment. Mrs. Peters is the sheriff’s wife and deep down, after seeing the dead bird and hearing how Minnie Foster reacted to Mr. Hale, she has a good feeling that Minnie was responsible for the death of John Wright. However, after Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters continued their conversation for a while, they felt they were guilty of a crime as well – a crime of being worthless, uncaring friends and neighbors to a suffering woman. This realization causes them to make the decision that they did concerning the evidence they found: “Slowly, unwillingly, Mrs. Peters turned her head until her eyes met the eyes of the other woman. There was a moment when they held each other in a steady, burning look in which there was no evasion nor flinching. Then Martha Hale's eyes pointed the way to the basket in which was hidden the thing that would make certain the conviction of the other woman -- that woman who was not there and yet who had been there with them all through that hour. For a moment Mrs. Peters did not move. And then she did it. With a rush forward, she threw back the quilt pieces, got the box, tried to put it in her hand-bag. It was too big. Desperately she opened it, started to take the bird out. But there she broke -- she could not touch the bird. She stood there helpless, foolish. There was the sound of a knob turning in the inner door. Martha Hale snatched the box from the sheriff's wife, and got it in the pocket of her big coat just as the sheriff and the county attorney came back into the kitchen” (Glaspell 281). The conversations that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters had in secret – away from the prying ears of the men – allowed them to understand that Minnie Foster was suffering in her home. That was the reason none of tasks that Minnie started ever got completed, and why her home did not feel welcoming. Minnie Foster needed a friend, but lacked friends or neighbors. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters realize this is why they are guilty of a serious crime. Everyone needs someone they can turn to when they are hurting – if they do not, it can cause them to seek desperate measures in order to find the solutions to their problems. Minnie Foster had no one to confide in, and she probably felt that everyone abandoned her when she needed them the most; this lack of people in her life caused her to seek a desperate solution to a problem in her life she did not know how to deal with. She probably did not even know if this was the right thing to do or not – she did, however, know that it would end the suffering that she was enduring, and that was good enough for her. But, as far as it being right or wrong, she probably was lost and confused because she had no one to tell her she was making a big mistake. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters realize this, and to atone for their sin, they hide the evidence that they know will convict Minnie Foster. They want to give her a second chance, and by giving her a second chance, they also give themselves a second chance to be good neighbors and good friends to her. Therefore, they hide the evidence, and Minnie is given a better chance at the trial. The story, “A Jury of Her Peers,” is wonderfully pieced together through the use of vivid imagery. The detailed conversations that go between Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters help readers to understand their feelings more, and how their feelings play an important part in this story. Without understanding Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, the readers would not understand the story. This is what occurs in “Trifles” – readers do not get what is going on because only the surface of the conversations are given, and are not given the whole thing. It is kind of like just being given a taste of a piece of pizza, but not allowed to eat the entire piece. To me, this is what “Trifles” was like. “A Jury of Her Peers,” however, was the entire piece of pizza – bold and full of flavors. This is why “A Jury of Her Peers” is the version of Glaspell’s story that I prefer the most – it helps readers to get a better understanding of the “whole” story, and not just pieces of it, like in the play, “Trifles.”
“A Jury of Her Peers,” written by Susan Glaspell, is the version that I prefer due to the fact that it helps readers to get a better understanding of the whole story between all of the characters through the use of imagery, instead of small pieces of the story, like in “Trifles.”

2) Consider the lecture on Trifles, and this question particularly: “What constitutes a crime and under what circumstances? That is, what’s the crime at hand . . . The legal crime, or the emotional one?
The lecture on the play, “Trifles,” was an excellent supplement because it helped us to consider some of the difficult, but important questions that readers must answer when reading this play. The main questions that are brought up in “Trifles,” are “What constitutes a crime and under what circumstances? That is, what’s the crime at hand . . . The legal crime, or the emotional one?” I think these are very important questions that everyone should consider – even when not reading a piece of literature – because it affects how we view events that occur around us, as well as our daily lives. These are two very important questions that I have explained below.
After considering the excellent lecture on the play, “Trifles,” and considering the questions, “What constitutes a crime and under what circumstances? That is, what’s the crime at hand . . . The legal crime, or the emotional one?” I believe that a crime can be labeled under both of these definitions – that is, real, solid crimes that people know they should not commit, such as stealing, murdering, kidnapping, etc, but I also believe that emotional injustices are also a crime as well because they can cause great pain or other grievances. After I read the play, “Trifles,” it was evident that there were a couple of things going on. Minnie Foster was having some problems with her husband, and it was also clear that it was these problems that led her to this last, desperate act – the final solution to her “problem.” No matter the circumstances, she did commit a crime – Minnie Foster committed murder. She took her husband’s life. If she did this out of self-defense – that is, her husband was beating and beating her, and then she found a weapon and killed him in order to defend herself – then that would be legal. However, she killed him while he was defenseless, and it makes her look like a murderer in court. Therefore, this is one of the crimes currently at hand, and what constitutes a legal crime under these particular circumstances. An emotional crime, however, is a little bit different because there is not a written “law” that says people are committing crimes if they are hurting other people emotionally. It is more of an unspoken crime that harshly convicts people straight at their subconscious level; therefore, they know they have wronged the other person. What constitute an emotional crime could be many things – such as feelings of loss, fear, abandonment, anger, or betrayal – that other people have caused. These particular feelings can cause people to feel as though everyone in the world is against them and that they have no friends to turn to or confide in – and therefore can be devastating. It can also cause people to do horrible things because they may not know how to deal with these devastating feelings. A perfect example of this principle is Minnie Foster. She was probably feeling all of these horrible feelings due to the fact that her husband was abusive to her, and to the fact that nobody cared enough to come over and be friends with her. These people – Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters – are guilty of emotional crimes, and they know they are. They are deeply convicted by their conscious, and they know they have wronged Minnie. They even have admitted they should be punished for these wicked emotional crimes, and I agree! Emotional crimes cause so much pain and agony. I can speak from experience. I am the victim of an emotional crime – just this last week, someone I love and care for deeply, emotionally wounded me, and I am physically and emotionally exhausted from the experience. That person, in my opinion, is guilty of a crime. That person betrayed and abandoned me in ways that I never thought she would. She is guilty of this horrible crime, and I hope that she is convicted of it, because I am a victim of it, just like Minnie was. I have not done anything crazy because of it, but I do have the horrible feelings that are packaged with this horrible crime. Minnie probably experienced it, just like I am right now. If there was some type of punishment for emotional crimes, I believe that everyone who was a victim would seek justice. They are just as evil as legal crimes, and they cause so much pain. I also believe that the amount of emotional crimes committed would drop if punishment were enforced. No one wants punishment, and this would be a perfect way to get rid of the pain that people cause each other emotionally. The person I deeply cared for caused me deep emotional pain, and I have yet to recover from it; I would hope that a punishment system would rid emotional crimes so other people would never experience what I am experiencing right now. Emotional crimes are just are devastating are legal crimes and come with devastating consequences – people need to realize they are just as awful and destructive as legal crimes and should be recognized as such.
After considering the lecture on the play, “Trifles,” and considering these two very important questions, “What constitutes a crime and under what circumstances? That is, what’s the crime at hand . . . The legal crime, or the emotional one?” I believe that legal crimes and emotional crimes are both the crimes at hand because they can cause the same amount of devastating damage, which is evident in the story, but can also be evident in life.