Did Susan Glaspell become a feminist writer in response to her

relationship with her husband George Cram Cook?

Abby GlennBlock 71-28-07 <http://www.nndb.com/people/691/000114349/>.

Pop Quiz!!!• Name the 5 characters that are on stage.

• Who has been killed?

• Who is accused of the murder?

• Name 2 things that the women find that make them believe that Minnie Wright actions were in response to her husbands abusive behavior.

Susan’s Childhood

• Born on 1 July 1876 in Davenport, Iowa.

• Attended Drake University from 1895-1899 and The University of Chicago in 1903.

• Held several journalistic positions

• Member of several women’s organizations

<http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap8/glaspell.html>.

Literary Works• In addition to 13 plays, Susan Glaspell also wrote “9 novels, 43

short stories, a children’s tale, plus a few essays and a biography of her husband” (Waterman, par. 2).

• Themes that would appeal to women

• Literary device: main character remains offstage for the entire work.

• Used local-color writing

• Most stories center on a romantic problem

• Persistent theme of pursuing life’s meaning

<http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=92-5551333272-0>.

Trifles

• Trifles was written quickly

• Based off the murder trial of

John Hossack by his wife Margaret

• Originally written as a one-act play,

it was later turned into a short story

entitled “Jury of Her Peers”

• “Among her first plays produced by the Provincetown Players is the one-act Trifles, in which two women talk in a kitchen while their husbands conduct a murder investigation. The women, who are dismissed by the men as inconsequential, realize that the killer, a reclusive woman, had been driven to kill her husband by his abusive behavior.” (Susan Glaspell 1882-1948, par. 6).

<http://www.wwc.edu/academics/departments/communications/wwcdrama/history/plays/trifles2.htm/>.

The Hossack Trial• Susan covered the trial from 1899-1901

• 26 articles

• John was a grizzly man

< <http://www.midnightassassin.com/2.html>.

• Margaret Hossack was accused of the murder of her husband.

The Provincetown Players

• Started in NYC

• Contemporary works

• Shows for own amusement

<http://homepages.nyu.edu/~jqk2598/provincetown.html>.

<http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/theatre/stage_provincetown.html>.

Important Symbols in Trifles• The separate entrances of the men and the women

• A play of words on Minnie Wright’s last name

• The broken jars of fruit.

• The finding of Minnie’s dead bird

• The reference of the knotted stitch in Minnie’s quilt

<http://www.antiquebottles.com/fruitjar/fame.html>.

Woman's Trifles• “MRS PETERS. (to the other woman) Oh, her fruit; it did freeze. (to the LAWYER)

She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire’d go out and her jars would break.

SHERIFF. Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and wrrryin’ about her

preserves. COUNTY ATTORNEY. I guess before we’re through she may have something more

serious than preserves to worry about.

HALE. Well, women are used to worring over trifles. (The two women move a little closer together.)” (Hinz-Bode, Kristina, pg. 57).

• “Trifles - noun 1.an article or thing of very little value. 2.a matter, affair, or circumstance of trivial importance or significance”

(Trifles, sec. 1).

Relationship with George Cram Cook

• Met in 1907

• Cook was engaged to his second wife

• Glaspell and Cook were involved throughout his second marriage

• Married on 14 April 1913 in Weekawken, New Jersey, after he divorced his second wife.

• Glaspell “with the determination of every woman in love had taken Cook away from his wife and children.”

<http://www.nypl.org/research/lpa/mirrors/images/ref/cramcook2.jpg/>.

Cook’s influence on Glaspell’s writing

• Writing from personal experience

• Change in writing style

• Plays vs. novels

• Overall writing trend of nineteenth century

<http://www.actalaska.org/gallery2/v/sundayshowcase/>.

Cook’s behavior towards Glaspell

• Outrageous behavior

• Jealousy

• Affairs

• Alcohol <http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqk2598/provincetown.html>.

Conception of Trifles• Cook needed material for “The Players”

• “Susan Glaspell said in the Road to the Temple:

‘Now Susan,’ [Jig] said to me, briskly, ‘I have announced a play of yours for the next bill.’

‘But I have no play!’ ‘Then you will have to sit down to-morrow and begin one.’ I protested. I did not know how to write a play. I had never “studied

it.” ‘Nonsense,’ said Jig. ‘you’ve got a stage, haven’t you?...What

playwrights need is a stage...their own stage.’” (qtd. in Gainor, J. Ellen, pg. 37).

Similarities in Minnie and Susan

• Dominated by their husbands

• Too quiet to reach out to their friends

• Unhappy marriages

• Difficult husbands

Works CitedBarclay, Winston. "Unsolved Iowa Ax Murder Subject Of April 22

WSUI Reading, Java House Show." University of Iowa News Release. 14 Apr. 2005. The University of Iowa News Services. 15 Jan. 2007 <http://www.news-releases.uiowa.edu/2005/april/041405ax-murder.html>.

France, Rachel. “Susan Glaspell July 1, 1876? – July 27, 1948.” Twentieth-Century American Dramatists 7 (1981): 215-223. InfoTrac. Freeport, NY. 4 November 2006 <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=klnbshawneemk&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=5&ste=6&ta=1&tbst=arp&ae=U13738511&n=10&docNum=H1200001238&ST=Susan+Glaspell&bConts=16047>.

Gainor, J. Ellen. Susan Glaspell in Context: American Theater, Culture and Politics, 1915-1948. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001.

Works Cited Cont.

Hinz-Bode, Kristina. Susan Glaspell and the anxiety of Expression, Language, and Isolation in the Plays. Jefferson: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2006.

Kennedy, Jeff. “Research Project about the Provincetown Playhouse.”homepages.nyu.edu. 1998. 3 February 2007<http://homepages.nyu.edu/~jqk2598/provincetown.html>.

Maillakais, Evans, Pollaro, Crocker, Guardiano. “Susan Glaspell Trifles” American Literature Research and Analysis Web Site. 30 July 1996. University of South Florida, Fort Myers. 9 Sept. 2006. <http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/glaspell.htm>.

Works Cited Cont.Noe, Marcia. “Susan Glaspell July 1, 1876? – July 27, 1948.” American

Novelists,1910-1945 9 (1981): 66-72. InfoTrac. Black Hawk College. 4 November 2006 <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=klnbshawneemk&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=5&ste=6&ta=1&tbst=arp&ae=U13738511&n=10&docNum=H1200000219&ST=Susan+Glaspell&bConts=16047>.

Papke, Mary E. “Susan Glaspell July, 1 1876- July 27, 1948” Twentieth-Century American Dramatists Second Series 228 (2000): 87-95. Dictionary of Literary Biography. InfoTrac. U of Tennessee Lib., Knoxville. 4 November 2006 <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=klnbshawneemk&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=5&ste=6&ta=1&tbst=arp&ae=U13738511&n=10&docNum=H1200009485&ST=Susan+Glaspell&bConts=16047>.

“Susan Glaspell 1882-1948” Contemporary Authors Online (2003). InfoTrac. 4 November 2006 <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=klnbshawneemk&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=5&ste=6&ta=1&tbst=arp&ae=U13738511&n=10&docNum=H1000037070&ST=Susan+Glaspell&bConts=16047>.

Works Cited Cont."trifles." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 29

Jan. 2007. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trifles>

"Trifles: Introduction." Drama for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 8. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 15 January 2007. <http://www.enotes.com/trifles/14142>.

Waterman, Arthur. “Susan Glaspell July 1, 1876- July 27, 1948” American Short-Story Writers, 1880-1910 78 (1989): 198-204. Dictionary of Literary Biography. InfoTrac. Georgia State U. 4 November 2006 <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=klnbshawneemk&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=5&ste=6&ta=1&tbst=arp&ae=U13738511&n=10&docNum=H1200000220&ST=Susan+Glaspell&bConts=16047>.