Two weeks ago, our class discussed “A Jury of Her Peers” and watched the film adaptation, “Trifles”. The film adaptation was very well done, capturing all the important elements of the story while also adding in a few pieces which I felt enhanced the viewing experience. I felt like the film really showed how subtle all the action portrayed in the book was. Additionally, I felt like the film did a nice job with the setting portrayed in the book. The entire house was very dusty and melancholy which helped set the tone for the film.
During our class discussion, Krystal and I (Team Group WonderTM Twins) talked about many things including, but not limited to, the importance of the location of the men in the women, the differences between the ending in the two different versions of the short story, and how the two different names should be interpreted in relation to the text.
I will be brief in my summary of Team Group WonderTM Twins’ discussion in order to leave a significant amount of space to discuss today’s readings. The location of the two groups of people was obviously symbolic. The men in the attic thought themselves to be above the women in the kitchen. That’s the spark notes version of it.
The names of both the story and the film were appropriate, although they both focused on different aspects of the story. The name “A Jury of Her Peers” deals primarily with what I discussed in my journal two weeks ago. Mrs. Wright had suffered a spiritual death, and rather than be judged by the men who were rummaging through her house, Mrs. Wright was judged by two women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, who are more familiar with her psychological state because they have been subject to male oppression, which makes Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale peers to Mrs. Wright. These two women decide that Mrs. Wright has already suffered enough and has paid the price for killing her husband. The name “Trifles” works as well because it deals with how the men dismissed the women. The men in the story made fun of the women for worrying about “trivial” things, but the trivial things in the story lead the women to solve the mystery of Mr. Wright’s murder.
For this journal, I would like to focus on the short story “The Sleeper Wakes” because my final paper for this class will focus on class and race and I thought this story was the most interesting in that regard for a few reasons. The main points I will be discussing are the importance of race in American society around the turn of the 20th century and how geography played a role, how people identify as a member of a certain race, and what issues racial ambiguity presents.
The story focuses on a woman named Amy Kildare who runs away from home in search of adventure. When Amy was a girl, she was adopted by a colored family, the Boldins, and because she grew up with colored people, Amy always considered herself to be colored. However, Amy is white. When Amy runs off, she winds up in New York where she makes the acquaintance of an influential woman named Zora Harrisson. Ms. Harrison takes a liking to Amy and the two live together for a while. Through Zora, Amy meets Stuart Wynne, who is enamored by Amy’s beauty. The two are married, but Amy resents the way the Wynne treats colored people. They have a falling out and Amy lives on her own while working to pay Wynne back the money she was given as alimony.
Mr. Wynne is portrayed as a very powerful, influential man from an old southern family. Wynne himself is rather old, being 55, which doesn’t seem to phase Amy much. What does bother Amy is the way Wynne treats colored people. He frequently talks about colored people as though they are subhuman and disrespects them whenever given the chance. The novel takes place around the time of WWI, based on context clues, which puts the setting halfway between the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. Colored people were no longer slaves and had the right to vote, but their rights were still heavily oppressed in southern states. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and other obstacles to voting prevented black representation in the south. It wasn’t until Guinn v. United States in 1915 that progress was finally made in taking away these obstacles.
When Amy reveals that she is, in fact, colored, Wynne is so offended that the couple divorces. To the southern-raised Wynne, race is hugely important. To the northern raised Amy, a person should not be discriminated against based on their race. Historically speaking, colored people have been discriminated against more in the southern U.S. than in the northern U.S. and Jessie Fauset, the author, makes the easy connection in order to make the relationship between Wynne and Amy more believable.
The reason that it was so important to have Wynne and Amy in a relationship is that it opened up a discussion on racial identity. What makes a person belong to a certain race? Is it the color of their skin? This short story would argue that is not the case. Rather, a person’s identity of formed through association. Amy thinks of herself as colored because she grows up with the Boldins, despite the fact that she is white. This association proves troublesome to Wynne. Wynne will not be married to Amy anymore for fear of being black by association.
Racial identity seems to be a problem in this story, but it’s something which is much less important today. While studies have shown that employers are more likely to hire a potential employee with a stereotypical white name than one with a stereotypical black or Hispanic name, the effect of racial prejudice are much less prominent now than they were 100 years ago.