Trifles vs. A Jury of Her Peers

Compare/Contrast between the Play Trifles and the Short Story of Trifles.

In the short story “A Jury of Her Peers” written by Susan Glaspell, the author rewrites the Play “Trifles” in a narrative form. A Jury of Her Peers has the same characters as Trifles, but now the reader gets to hear what the characters were thinking and feeling. The narrative elaborates on how the characters met and even how they feel about one another. For example, on page 275 the writer explains how Mrs. Hale first met Mrs. Peters, “the year before at the county fair”. Mrs. Hale’s opinion of Mrs. Peters is brought to the surface on page 276 when the writer reveals that she felt Mrs. Peters “didn’t seem like a sheriff’s wife”. Whereas in the play Trifles, the reader is left with no insight of this nature since the dialogue is so central (all you know is what you see and hear). Feelings are left out of the play, and revealed in the short story.
We get a better feel for the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Hale in the short story. Mr. Hale rushes her (on page 275) when he yells “Martha!”, and tells her to “Don’t keep folks waiting out here in the cold”. Her annoyance towards him shows on page 277 where she gets irritated with him for “saying things he didn’t need to say”. She tries to give him a cross look, but is interrupted by the county attorney. Our suspicions of male dominance are confirmed on page 279 when the sheriff replies to the county attorney “Nothing here but kitchen things” and the writer reveals that his little laugh was for the “insignificance of kitchen things”. In the end, the two female characters Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters hide the evidence found in the kitchen that could have been used to convict the accused Minnie Wright of murder. The short story brings more of the readers’ imagination to work, whereas the play is pretty black and white, with little room for interpretation.