strung a rope around his neck. And that someone might have been his wife, the quiet and forlorn Minnie Wright. Written in 1916, Susan Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles is loosely based on true events. As a young reporter, Glaspell covered a murder case in a small town in Iowa. Years later, she crafted a short play inspired by her experiences and observations. Plot Summary: The sheriff, his wife, the county attorney, and the neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Hale, enter the kitchen of the Wright household
Biographical, and Historical approach to Literature. “Minnie’s hard life is intensified by the men’s loud laughter and mockery of women’s trivial concerns” is a line from Susan Glaspell’s short story, “Jury of her peers” as well as from the article by Elaine Showalter. “Jury of her peers” was first written as a play in 1916, call Trifles. The article and the story can be approached from a Feminist, Biographical, and Historical approach as readers cannot totally understand that line without reading the
broad topic of gender because gender issues are relevant to a variety of fields and exploring the effects of gender in one field contributes to the understanding of gender in another field. The plays in this study were Votes for Women, Robins; Trifles, Glaspell; Our Town, Wilder; Moon for the Misbegotten, O'Neill; The Glass Menagerie, Williams; Death of a Salesman, Miller; A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry; Funnyhouse of a Negro, Kennedy; Uncommon Women and Others, Wasserstein; Fefu and Her Friends