In her article “Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers: Woman Abuse in a Literary and Legal Context”, Angel discusses gender inequality using examples from literature and real-life facts. First, she justifies the use of fictional stories in legal analysis. Then, she recounts the emergence of women’s rights movements that highlighted inequality. Angel proceeds to analyze Glaspell’s most famous story using the feminist perspective. Her next point is the prevalence of woman abuse in the current legal framework. Finally, she highlights the influence of Greek literature on Susan Gaspel and the debate on gender inequality. The purpose of this paper is to discuss Angel’s argument that Glaspell uses her play to highlight legal treatment of women is inherently flawed.
Angel raises an especially peculiar point that criminal law presupposes the concept of a reasonable man. According to this principle, a particular type of behavior is seen as sensible. Angel describes the reasonable man as “the hypothetical human being who sets the standard of purportedly objective reasonableness, of proper legal and moral behavior” (819). Yet, she is also unnerved that this definition is grounded in masculinity and does not apply to women, implying that the concept of the reasonable woman does not exist (Angel 820). Even though modern common law has switched the word “man” with the word “person”, the masculinity is still prioritized. This point interests me because anyone who does not fall into the accepted definition is not reasonable and should be regarded with negative preconceptions.
In my personal experience, the concept of reason is highly subjective. In my family, it is the accepted norm to regard strangers with suspicion. Open-minded behavior is generally seen as cautionless and not reasonable. Yet, when I used the family approved way of limited social interaction with people that I did not know in school, I was chastised for not making social connections. Teachers framed me as shy and criticized my behavior as not reasonable. This experience taught me the danger of using reason as a metric to evaluate a person’s conduct.
Reading Angel’s article has caused me to reassess my judgment of Glaspell’s play Trifles. Angel’s writing made me consider the perspective of men’s stereotypes about reason clouding their judgment. Glaspell specifically indicates the flaws in the sheriff’s and country attorney’s thinking with lines such as “nothing here but kitchen things” (10). With the knowledge acquired from Angel’s article, I believe that the characters would still pay no attention to the important clues, even if they were highlighted by women. I understand that it is not the matter of analysis error but rather a stereotypical mindset that dismisses women’s opinion and behaviors as unreasonable.
Subsequently, I agree with Angel’s idea that the concept of the reasonable person is flawed. She explicitly depicts the sheriff and county attorney as men who ignore important clues because they dismiss the importance of women’s opinions. Not only does it diminish the value of women’s viewpoints, but it also prevents men from correctly assessing the crime scene. As a result, Trifles shows that self-centeredness and dismissal of women’s viewpoints obfuscate justice.
The subsequent implication is that the overall law system is based on incorrect assumptions. Angel is extremely vocal about the lack of consideration of women abuse (820). When husbands are killed by women, the later ones are judged as insane or abnormal, which dismisses the history of familial abuse that led to the murder in the first place. This is exactly what Glaspell’s play is about – the neglected abuse of a wife by a husband (20). The sheriff and the country attorney focused on the fact of murder and blamed the suspect, while women actually felt that it had been justified (Angel 818). However, the underlying understanding of reason prevents men from seeing the wife’s actions as logical.
In conclusion, Glaspell’s Trifles is a literary criticism of the treatment of women within the legal framework. The main point is that flawed beliefs can persist for a long time. The historical statistics of abused women whose hardships were ignored proves it (Angel 784). It also proves that historical roots of modern legal concepts should also be considered, since the declared gender neutrality is actually heavily one-sided. Angel shows that stories are extremely helpful at highlighting pending social issues. Analyzing literary texts may not seem the most effective way of changing the status quo, but it is useful at highlighting prejudices and injustices.
Works Cited
Angel, Marina. “Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers: Woman Abuse in a Literary and Legal Context.” Buffalo Law Review, vol. 45, no. 3, 1997, pp. 779–844.
Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Frank Shay, 1916.