Susan Glaspell

סוזן גלספל (1948-1876), עיתונאית צעירה מטעם דה מויין דיילי ניוז (Des Moines Daily News), נשלחה לסקר את סיפור הרצח של ג'ון הוסק. החשד נפל על אשתו, מרגרט, והיא אכן הורשעה במשפט שנערך, על פי החוק הנהוג אז, בפני חבר מושבעים גברים. מאוחר יותר הוגש ערעור והיא זוכתה. ב-1916 כתבה גלספל לראשונה מחזה בן מערכה אחת בשם "זוטות" (Trifles""), שהתבסס על מקרה רצח זה והועלה על במת תיאטרון-השחקנים שהקימה גלספל עם בעלה וחברים. שנה לאחר מכן פרסמה את הסיפור "חבר מושבעות כמותה" ("A jury of her peers"), שעובד מתוך המחזה.
לכבוד הגיליון הראשון של "מגדר" תורגם מחדש הסיפור "חבר מושבעות כמותה" בידי יוכי שלח, שהוסיפה רשימה, המתארת את השפעתו על חקר המגדר.

Throughout the twentieth century women theoreticians and writers have examined the relationship between gender and space and how power mechanisms operate through this relationship. One of the outstanding examples of these writers is Susan Glaspell. Glaspell focuses on how private space enables women, who are deprived of language, to claim a language of their own in her short story, ‘A Jury of Her Peers’. In the story private space turns out to be a text that enables women to communicate. However, this text is not woven totally of words but of certain signs of female experience. The most prominent sign is the quilt made by Minnie Foster, the murder suspect in the story. The traces that Minnie leaves -consciously or unconsciously- in her household and on the patterns of the quilt enable a dialogue among the women characters and provide the necessary clues for the two women characters to solve the mystery of the murder of her husband. Minnie and the other women communicate throughout the story, though Minnie is not present but only mentioned in the story. The medium of this communication is the oblique language of women that men cannot decode. Thus this language is not one that is constructed of words and that serves the operation of the patriarchal order but a kind of female language.

At the outset, Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles (1916), via its female protagonists, proposes that establishing meaningful connections and friendships between women is the only path for gender equality to occur; critics laud Glaspell’s work for championing a “sense of sisterhood” (Koprince 78), a “total feminine community” (Alkalay-Gut 79), and “powerful female-centered networks” (Nelligan 87). In this article, I question notions of feminist solidarity by traveling in Part I back to America’s feminist roots in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the time of suffragism and the first wave (1848-1920). Part II, the majority of this article, revisits and offers a new reading of Trifles by challenging traditional scholarship (Ben-Zvi; Ferguson; Gainor; Hedges; Kolodny; Koprince) which reads the play straightforwardly as a feminist text. I argue, in the manner of Lisa Maria Hogeland’s influential work “Fear of Feminism: Why Young Women Get the Willies,” that the play puts forward a notion of gender consciousness, which celebrates women’s sexual difference, but it does not advocate for a feminist consciousness which entails a political and social commitment to action and change.

In Susan Glaspell's Jury of Her Peers, women's awakening, their feminine bonding, and ideological activism are inseparable from their realization of the gender discrimination and oppression inherent in the existing legal system, and their responsive creation of alternative, feminine justice and judgment. The search for feminist consciousness and the foundation of an informed community of women imply rejection of the legal order as a tool of patriarchal domination, and exploration of feminine legal thought. I suggest that in her  short story, Glaspell anticipates both legal feminist theory that focuses on dominance, oppression, and resistance, 2 and psychological feminist theory that focuses on an ethics of care, women's voice, and feminine networking. 3 Further, her narrative offers a uniquely coherent, comprehensive world-view, combining the two perspectives, often perceived as contrasting. Quilting serves as a three-dimensional metaphor for feminine social networking, feminist storytelling, and women's engagement in law (their unique method of piecing evidence together). Quilting thus symbolically mediates between the fundamental structures of feminine community, feminist literature, and feminist legal thought. Introducing jurisprudential rhetoric, I go on to show how Glaspell's literary quilting of feminine communality and feminist legal thinking represents an episode of emerging feminist consciousness as an act of collective "conscientious objection"-if not potential revolution. My essay concludes with the suggestion, based on personal teaching experience, to include Jury in law-school curriculum, together with contemporary feminist films. Significant issues and motifs link Glaspell's short story (and play) with contemporary feminist film. Read with Glaspell's text, feminist films can be seen as modern, influential remakes of her turn-of-the-century work. Such films, as well as their literary predecessor, are powerful teaching materials in twenty-first-century law school curriculum.

Written in 1916, Trifles is Susan Glaspell's, a young journalist and writer, one act-play that was inspired by a real murder case that happened in 1900 (wikipedia.com/Trifles n.d.) The case is about a woman named Margaret Hossack who killed her husband, John Hossack, and of course, it shocked the society because it rarely happened at that age. Although Margaret Hossack had 9 children, her husband, Mr. Hossack, was treated her really bad. Ben Zvi, in her paper, explains that Mr. Hossack was an abusive husband and father for his family yet rich and successful farmer. (Ben-Zvi 1992, 152) That is why Margaret Hossack seems should be happy but she was not and her neighbors who heard about her problem encouraged her to reconcile with her husband and privately keep her marital troubles. Unexpectedly, Margaret Hossack suspected for the murder of her husband and was eventually found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor. Even though she always said that she had been sleeping while the murder happened, the juries still stated that she was guilty. (Chung 1999) Therefore, this case attracted Glaspell's attention and moves her to creatively make a new version of the Hossacks' case and keep the essences (marriage life) in the famous play "Trifles." and later, the short-story version entitled "A Jury of Her Peers" in1917. The play talks about the plight of a wife named Minnie Wright imprisoned in her marriage to John Wright who is found dead by a neighbor named Mr. Hale. It is all about marriage and the imprisonment inside causing pressures to women either their families are rich or poor. The writer starts reading this play which begins with a scene where some people coming to John Wright's farmhouse to collect some evidences about this murder. She finds about it from Mrs. Peters' dialogues "Mr. Henderson said coming out that what was needed for the case was a motive; something to show anger, or--sudden feeling." (Glaspell 1916) . The reason of this action in Kathy Chung's perspective in her paper, is to base the court cases on circumstantial evidence and offer glimpses of how women's circumstances were viewed by society since witnesses could not be found (Chung 1999) Then, those characters in this play are divided into men and women having different perspectives, such as the women are too concerned with trifles while men are busy in searching the evidences to prove that Minnie Wright is guilty. The men are Mr. Peters (a sheriff), Mr. Lewis Hale (a witness) and Mr. George Henderson (county attorney) and the women are Mrs. Hale and Mrs.

This article presents information on the book "A Jury of Her Peers." As noted by several scholars, this book is very much about the practice of exegesis, about seeing into things, of seeing through a thing to something else. It is treated as a kind of informal exegetical work, a casual forensics, necessary to the formation of collective memory. Consider that the evidence of memory is always with us, it is always right here in our hands, before our eyes, in our thoughts as we scrutinize its contours. Yet from a simultaneity of evidence and perception comes a rift through which other times enter and dwell in the present. Our remembrance reconstructs the past through the close scrutiny of gesture, objects, words, images, forms and symbols from which we create the productive intrusions of memory. First a landscape of communication is formed from the relation of past and present. Remembrance creates a cultural topography on which we locate our actions. This book is not witnessing to domestic violence.

This paper is a feminist approach to Susan Glaspell's Trifles. It handles the marital discordance which results in misanthropy. Mrs. Wright in this play is a woman who falls victim to the suppression and marginalization of her husband, Mr. Wright. The hard-hearted husband destroys her human feelings out of neglect, a matter that ends in killing her husband. The subject is presented from a purely feminine perspective in that Mrs. Wright's character is fully revealed through the female characters' reactions. In fact, Trifles creates the impression that Glaspell is in full advocacy of women's right to reach self-fulfillment away from any form of social dictations. Matrimonial relationships must be compatible in order to enjoy a rather entertaining and continuous repose of mind.

A man is dead and his wife is the main suspect. She has been arrested and is in police custody. Glaspell in one act solves the mystery through feminine instincts. This should not be classed as a 'whodunit' on the basis of my words above. It is about the helplessness of women in a male dominated society. It is a tribute to Susan Glaspell that she makes us feel this social evil and albeit unconsciously, rebel against it.

This is an Arabic translation of “Trifles”, a famous play by prominent American playwright Susan Glaspell (1876-1948). Glaspell was one of the founders of the Playwright’s Theatre, formerly recognized as the Provincetown Players in the United States of America. She wrote ten novels, twenty plays, and more than forty short stories. “Trifles” is a one-act play written in 1916. It is considered to be one of Susan Glaspell’s major works. “Trifles” is a play that is frequently anthologized in American literature textbooks. The play was based on the murder case of the sixty-year-old farmer, John Hossack, which was covered widely by Susan Glaspell while she was working as a journalist with the Des Moines Daily News immediately after her graduation from Drake University. Accordingly, “Trifles” presents the murder of an oppressive husband by his emotionally abused wife. It is an attempt to re-address the John Hossack case from the point of view of women who might not have a similar viewpoint of the nature of marital disagreement and domestic unhappiness. The murder happened in a period where women had insufficient protection from domestic abuse, and had not yet obtained the right to vote. The main characters of the play are: 1- The Sheriff, Mr. Henry Peters; 2- Mrs. Peters (wife of the Sheriff); 3- Mr. Lewis Hale (a neighbour of Mr. and Mrs. Wright); 4- Mrs. Hale (wife of Mr. Hale); and 5- The County Attorney, Mr. George Henderson. The off-stage characters are: 1- Mr. John Wright (the victim); 2-Mrs. Minnie Wright (the victim’s wife); 3- Frank (Deputy Sheriff); 4- Harry (a helper of Mr. Lewis Hale); 5- Dr. Lloyd (the coroner). The play addressed the life of Mrs. Wright who became enraged and took the life of her abusive and violent husband after he killed her bird. The motive for murder was the killing of the canary because it represented freedom for her. Mrs. Wright, the protagonist, lived through a series of emotions, such as rage, shock, lack of feeling, rejection ,and deep sadness, mainly because the loss of her bird was sudden, surprising and unforeseen. She considered the death of her bird as a great calamity, as she lost something extremely crucial in her life. Susan Glaspell chose the title of the play from a line stated by one of the characters in the play, Mr. Lewis Hale, when he says: “Well, women are used to worrying about trifles.” The title demonstrates irony when Mrs. Minnie Wright seemed to be more concerned about trifles than she is about being under arrest for murder. This English play, “Trifles,” was chosen to be translated into Arabic because of its significance and association to the Arab culture. For the sake of wide readability, it was translated into Modern Standard Arabic (formal Arabic), as it is quite the same in all Arab countries.

This essay centers on significant locations in the life and times of the American novelist and playwright Neith Boyce (1872-1951). An anarchist-feminist, Boyce retained her birth name in publications throughout a long career of varying success. Well known in the early decades of the 20th century for novels and short stories, she was interested in writing for the stage and is now acknowledged as the Ur-mother of the Provincetown Players. Somewhat ironically, she is most famous for a 45+-year correspondence with her radical journalist husband Hutchins Hapgood (1869-1944) as they negotiated an unusual marriage with remarkable frankness on sexual matters. Issues of domestic labor, the sexual double standard, and personal autonomy are addressed.

What took my attention the most in this story is only one woman has her own name 'Minnie'. All other woman are called by their husband's name. More than the women have to carry their names of husbands, they have to carry their ideologies and opinions absolutely. This detail is interesting and important for me. I understood this point at first and then considered that this story is about problems of women or feminism .

Текстът разглежда някои от най-важните измествания, които се наблюдават в джендър-режимите в началото на ХХ век, особено ясно изразени в американската култура, като следва хипотезата, че усилията на жените да получат нова позиция в обществото в същност представляват движение в посока към мъжествеността: придобиване на (собствена) власт за сметка на (дотогавашните) мъжки привилегии. Това включва участие в публичната сфера, изразено в случая като участие в авангардните творчески общности на епохата. Един от резултатите на този процес, стоящ във фокуса на изследването, е разпадането / разбягването на валидните стереотипи на женствеността от предишната (Викторианска) епоха, известни под общия етикет "Истинска женственост". Текстът си поставя за цел да проследи проявите на това развитие в пиесата на С. Гласпел На ръба.

This new biography explores the extraordinary life of Edith Craig (1869-1947), her prolific work in the theatre and her political endeavours for women's suffrage and socialism. At London's Lyceum Theatre in its heyday she worked alongside her mother, Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and Bram Stoker, and gained valuable experience. She was a key figure in creating innovative art theatre work. As director and founder of the Pioneer Players in 1911 she supported the production of women's suffrage drama, becoming a pioneer of theatre aimed at social reform. In 1915 she assumed a leading role with the Pioneer Players in bringing international art theatre to Britain and introducing London audiences to expressionist and feminist drama from Nikolai Evreinov to Susan Glaspell. She captured the imagination of Virginia Woolf, inspiring the portrait of Miss LaTrobe in her 1941 novel Between the Acts, and influenced a generation of actors, such as Sybil Thorndike and Edith Evans. Frequently eclipsed in accounts of theatrical endeavour by her younger brother, Edward Gordon Craig, Edith Craig's contribution both to theatre and to the women's suffrage movement receives timely reappraisal in Katharine Cockin's meticulously researched and wide-ranging biography, released for the seventieth anniversary of Craig's death. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/edith-craig-and-the-theatres-of-art-9781472570642/#sthash.Gk5xK04q.dpuf

According to de Beauvoir, gender roles in society are in binary opposition: men are "the One", the absolute and essential, while the women are "the Other", the accidental and inferior. This concept of Otherness is clearly present in various elements of modern plays written by female playwrights in the twentieth century. This notion has been traced back in Susan Glaspell's Trifles through the play's setting and atmosphere, as well as the characters' understanding of "justice". For A Raisin in the Sun by the African American playwright Lorraine Hansberry, women experience the inferiority of being both women and black. Sarah Kane's Blasted, being an example of In-Yer-Face theatre, depicts the emotional and physical abuse of women in (post-) war societies through its harsh and brutal visualization of different forms of violence. By comparing these three different plays, it appears that there is a tendency emerging towards universalism, the &...

According to de Beauvoir, gender roles in society are in binary opposition: men are "the One", the absolute and essential, while the women are "the Other", the accidental and inferior. This concept of Otherness is clearly present in various elements of modern plays written by female playwrights in the twentieth century. This notion has been traced back in Susan Glaspell's Trifles through the play's setting and atmosphere, as well as the characters' understanding of "justice". For A Raisin in the Sun by the African American playwright Lorraine Hansberry, women experience the inferiority of being both women and black. Sarah Kane's Blasted, being an example of In-Yer-Face theatre, depicts the emotional and physical abuse of women in (post-) war societies through its harsh and brutal visualization of different forms of violence. By comparing these three different plays, it appears that there is a tendency emerging towards universalism, the &...

The Absent Character is a very important figure in modern American drama. It is employed as a means to reinforce the plot and to catalyze the actions of the play. This thesis addresses this importance as it relates to simulating the actions of the play and the effects this character leads to. I have focused on the dark side of the absent character and on how it succeeds in creating a hunting presence. My selected pivots on Susan Glaspell's Trifles, Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie and Edward Albee's who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Focusing on these representative plays, I have found that the absent character is so overwhelming that it becomes a presence on the stage. Its haunting presence usually destroys and paralyzes the lives of the onstage characters and creates a negative impact on the viewer.