![]() ![]() I don’t know how she endured all of this for twenty years.” The short story generates some good discussion as well as writing opportunities. ![]() Minnie was completely isolated and cut off from her happy youth. He was such a cold person that most people didn’t want to be near him. Minnie was forced to be with this cold, hard man. Students can research these areas or guest speakers can come to class and help the students practice taking notes.Ī blogger named Jennifer posted her analysis of the story a few years ago and offered this observation: “In this era women didn’t get divorced. What was life like in the early 1900s? What were societal attitudes toward women and the options open to them: stay single, work outside the home, divorce? What was transportation and communication like without cars, phones, neighbors? Glaspell is considered an early voice for feminism. ![]() If I use the story in March, then I could also explore its historical and sociological details as an homage to Women’s History Month. Sometimes the students are asked to take on the role of prosecutor or defense and make the case for a jury. Lively discussions ensue especially if there is wide diversity of students represented in the class, as there usually is: men and women older and younger married, single or divorced and perhaps even city dweller and country dweller. Young critical thinkers can use those descriptive details and the telling dialog to draw inferences, explore the assumptions of the various characters depending on their role in the story, and make their own assessment about what actually happened. Student writers can see the importance of detail-what is and what is not noticed by the various characters in the story as well as the form and punctuation of dialog. I used it in class to teach writing and critical thinking. I first discovered this story when I was teaching back in the 1980s. The attorney, however, condescendingly dismisses anything the women might observe or think with such statements as “Women are used to worrying over trifles” and “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” You can access the full story online-it is a good read. The main story develops from what the women find and share. The men investigate, and the women mainly stay in the kitchen tidying up and pulling together a few items (apron, shawl, jar of preserves) to bring to the wife/suspect as she awaits charges. Later, he and his wife, the sheriff and his wife, and the county attorney return to the household where the murder occurred looking for evidence of a motive. Instead, one character simply reports what he saw when he discovered the scene. The main action-the murder-is never seen. The story itself is not a fast-paced thriller. The next year, she turned the play into the short story “A Jury of Her Peers.” At the time of publication, the story was considered both controversial and disturbing. Many years later, after leaving journalism to become a fiction writer, Glaspell first wrote her account inspired by this factual murder in a play for Providence Players called Trifles (1916). In that true story a farmer’s wife-after being convicted for the murder of her husband with an axe-was released on appeal for lack of evidence. The story is a fictionalized account loosely based on a true crime story Glaspell covered in 1900 when she was a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News. Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) wrote “A Jury of Her Peers” in 1917. ![]()
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