Symbolism In Susan Glaspell's A Jury Of Her Peers

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Susan Glaspell does a fantastic job at making her story “A Jury of Her Peers” capture her audience’s and keep their eyes glued to her words, and her play Trifles is great and keeping the readers on the edge of their seats. Imagine eavesdropping on people who are talking about something scandalous, like a woman killing her husband. Hearing something like that would have the listener go “ooh” and interest them, but there is not much to know besides what is being said with little-to-no background information. The only thing that gets to be known are whoever was involved, few details on the background of characters, little amounts of information in regards to the setting, and there will always be some sort of bias from the person who is telling the story. Now imagine being at the actual scene, where the setting is not just a mental image but now is a concrete visual, everything that…show more content…
The biggest symbol is the kitchen which is “traditionally, the very symbol of the woman's place” and the men do not dare search for clues in there (Brown). Another major symbol is the canary, which is representative of Ms. Wright. It is known that canaries are birds that love to sing and do it a lot, and Ms. Wright “used to sing real pretty herself” (Trifles). The bird cage also is a symbol for the marriage between Mr. and Mrs. Wright and how it gives off a feeling of being trapped. Once it is believed that Mr. Wright broke the cage and snapped the neck of the singing canary it makes Ms. Wright feel like her husband broke their marriage and killed her for doing what she enjoys, singing. Another major symbol is the rope and how it is a symbol of death and the beginning of getting things back to how they were before. Mr. Wright killed the bird with the rope because he wanted to go back to having silence, and Ms. Wright killing Mr. Wright is a way that Ms. Wright can go back to a time where she was not told to stop
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