Plays and Short Stories by Susan Glaspell - Essay Example

Winston Richardson Briley English 102-D60 15 April Plays and Short Stories Susan Glaspell, a feminist who wrote ic plays and novels is an award winning actress of the American History. She won many awards in writing novels as well as plays. Her famous play Trifles became known all over the globe and continues to receive much attention following its popularity. Also, among her popular works is the short story, the jury by her peers, which she authored after the play. The two are very similar in terms of the characters and the story which is a continuation from the play. The play and short story however differ in some way in terms of the setting that Susan Glaspell brings forth. The main difference is in the title of the two, ‘trifles’ and ‘the jury by her peers’. The title of the play brings out a sense of irony from the beginning. Trifles signify the little things that women find important while for men, they are basically nonsense. The play also focuses on mentioning some of the ‘trifles’ for instance the stitching of Mrs. Wright. (Gainor, 43). This is obviously not important to the men. For ‘the jury by her peers’ the title gives out a sense of feminism from the pronoun ‘her’. This only means that the story covers more of feministic ideologies. The word jury in the title signifies the judgment Mrs. Wright gets from the women, judgment from within, in that the women understand why her act was justifiable. Glaspell has brought out another difference in the way she writes the two pieces. The difference in intrusion between the two, the feelings evoked from the play and the short story. In the play, the audience is more on focused on what they see and listen and forget to see the bigger picture which is the feelings in the play. The sadness of women inferiority and the ideology of women getting to understand each other. For the short story, the intrusion is well comprehended. Glaspell does a good job by involving the audience in a manner that they grasp what is going on. (Glaspell, 45)The feelings are revealed through Glaspell’s authorial with the many characters. In the play, it is the work of the actors to bring out those feelings. Through the play, the women appear to be segregated physically from the men. The men go upstairs to check on the dead body while the women go directly to the kitchen and sit with Mrs. Wright. Women happen to be marginalized in this setting of a play. There is a physical boundary between them and the men. However, in the short story, the women are seen to engage with the men. For example, when Mr. Hale chuckles about the Mrs. Wright’s stitching which the other two women are focused on. There is dialogue between the men and the women. The ensemble of the short story does not bring about a form of marginalization towards the women. Audience participation is another prominent difference between the play and the short story. In trifles, reading or watching the play itself ensures the audience is participating in a bid to understand and come up with ideas of why some situations are happening. The audience must see to itself that they comprehend what is going on and why it is going on. Nevertheless, the short story is vivid and simple. The audience does not need to think about situation as it is all laid out for them. The reason as to why a situation is in place is clear in the short story. It is simple and not fully engaging the readers to think beyond what they are reading. In addition, character dominance is different in the play and the short story. In the play, the main focus is on Mrs. Right, the suspect to the death of her husband. Although she does not appear in the setting of the play in a manner that the audience can see her, she is the main focus. (Angel, 820). The audience is tuned to view the story about Mrs. Wright and why she killed the husband also her state when the sheriff arrives. Ideally, she has dominated the paly among all characters. In ‘the jury by her peers’ Mrs. Hale is the main character. The story becomes more of her and not the other characters. More information about Mrs. Hale is seen in the short story than it was in the play. She becomes the story. The language used by Susan Glaspell is quite different in the two pieces. As much as dialogue takes central point in the two, there is difference in the manner the language has been spelt out in the two. In the short story, the language is more descriptive and involving. Glaspell has employed the art of vivid description to explain most scenarios. This is because, for a short story, the tale is meant to be read and give a comprehension to the readers easily. In the ‘trifle’ the play has dialogue and other forms of language but vivid description. This is due to the fact that a play is meant for live performance and the focus is not on the reader to understand the words but to understand the flow of the tale. The language in both hence becomes different. Also, another difference acquired form the titles is their general overview of the play and the short story. The short story title mans the focus is on the characters. The characterization is embodied by the ladies who seem to give a judgment and explanation of why Mrs. Wright is justified to have killed the husband. However, in ‘trifles’ Susan Glaspell portrays a focus on objects. Objects that make the suspect, Minnie Foster a murderer of her husband. The men focus on finding evidence while the women focus on hiding the evidence. The two titles give a different focus. In conclusion, Susan Glaspell is a phenomenal writer who gives the two pieces of art similarity in themes and plot but also provides to her audience a difference between the two. Therefore, despite the similarity, the play and the short story are very much distinct in so many levels. Work Cited Angel, M. "Susan Glaspells Trifles and a Jury of Her Peers: Woman Abuse in a Literary and Legal Context." Buffalo Law Review. 45.3 (1997): 779-844. Print. Gainor, J E, and Jerry Dickey. "Susan Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell: Staging Feminism and Modernism, 1915-1941." (2007): 34-52. Print. Glaspell, Susan, Donna H. Winchell, and Susan Glaspell. Trifles. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2004. Print. Glaspell, Susan. A Jury of Her Peers. Mankato, Minn: Creative Education, 1992. Print. Read More