how do you condense annotated, biblograph, thesis into final paper? MLA format

In the early 1900s in the United States was a time of change in many ways. Until that time, women had been confined to the home in the traditional roles of wife and mother, and this play and short stories reflect those issues and impersonations. Ms. Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” story explores the way a bond grows between three women as information about the case comes to light. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale’s decision at the end of the story is the climax of the plot. Their actions reveal an important setting transformation as well as their new found connection with Mrs. Wright. “Mrs. Hale speaking: Mrs. Peters. I wish I had come sometimes when she (Mrs. Wright) was here. Mrs. Peters speaking: But of course you were awful busy, Mrs. Hale—your house and your children” (Glaspell). Had she visited the lonely woman from time to time, this tragedy might not have occurred. Every supportive situation in any choice we must take into account both logic and feelings, we need to look carefully at how we and others feel about the situation as well as the facts.

I trust the following quote is appropriate and effective, it brings home the complete meaning of the observations of this annotation in “Trifles”. “Fifty years before the current women's movement, Susan Glaspell understood how consciousness raising could empower women to take actions together which they could not take as individuals, how as women share their experiences, they could act out of a new respect for the value of their lives as women, different from, but certainly equal to the world of men” (Marsh). As the age old saying goes, “Men Are from Mars, Women are from Venus” we do not identify in the same ways. The conflicting views of men and women have been questioned for centuries, noting how men and women differ in sentiments, affection, and in communications. My interpretation on this is that women are simply still more emotional when it comes to various things. Movies, relationships, and everyday life situations are the causes that affect women more than men.

Friedman, Sharon. "Honor Or Virtue Unrewarded: Susan Glaspell's Parodic Challenge To Ideologies Of Sexual Conduct And The Discourse Of Intimacy." New England Theatre Journal 17. (2006): 35-58. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 8 Apr. 2014

Noe, Marcia, and Robert Lloyd Marlowe. "Suppressed Desires and Tickless Time: An Intertextual Critique of Modernity." American Drama 14.1 (2005): 1-14. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.

Men have dominated all aspects of life throughout history, and women were known as being the more tear-jerking sex. This notion of women being unequal to men use to be a norm for women to being subordinate in society, and a man being the important sex. The play, “Suppressed Desires” is wrap around a central theme of sexual tension between women and men. However, in “Trifles” the ignorance of sexism is exposed as a major theme in my opinion. Also, in the play it explores new feminist theories between married couples. Through evolution, women became more confident to speak their minds on issues involving them. “By precisely rendering the historical tensions surrounding the ethics of women's sexual behavior and the public discourses that mediate personal expectations about intimacy, Glaspell re-contextualizes familiar literary tropes and character types informing these social ideals.”(Friedman)

“Suppressed Desire's inscription of traditional values regarding love and marriage, as the Joyce reconcile their conflicts and agree to live in accordance with traditional temporal conventions.”(Noe) Glaspell expressed her thoughts and ideas through her writings, perhaps without knowing her impact she helped to change society through her novels, and plays. Sexuality is now being owned by women expressing themselves; not just for men’s enjoyment and requirements.

Bendel-Simson, Mary. "Twelve Good Men or Two Good Women: Concepts of Law and Justice in Susan Glaspell's 'A Jury of Her Peers'." Studies in Short Fiction 36.3 (1999): 291-297. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.

Mael, Phyllis. "Trifles: The Path to Sisterhood." Literature Film Quarterly 17.4 (1989): 281-284. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.

The three women make significant choices and the men approach the murder scene with a narrow perspective, guilty before proven innocent. Despite of the women indecisiveness on the penalties of law and consequences verses the situation, (behavior of Mr. Wright) in-which the story nor does the play completely explains; Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale eventually decide Mrs. Wright should not be convicted and choose to keep evidence from the men. “The story is an evaluation of the different ways, men and women approach the investigation of the crime scene. The men, all representatives of the Law (the sheriff, the prosecutor, and a witness), are oriented to a mechanistic view of legal propriety: they react to an action and look for the evidence to justify the retribution they wish to enact. The corpse of John Wright impels them forward. They react to his death and by it are motived, indeed fixated, on finding and convincing his killer. Believing that Minnie is this killer, they seek the motive necessary to convince “twelve good men”, that Mrs. Wright is guilty of murder of her husband. For them, evidence is factual and their version of “justice” is based solely upon a consideration of the facts they gather and retribution fueled by vengeance.” (Bendel-Simson)

I have noticed in the news today men who killed in the heat of passion were much more likely to be found guilty of murder, despite the consequences of the evidence. However, with the same circumstances women who kill their husbands are most like to get an empathic jury thinking she must have been abused, killing out of fear and despair. Women today are still thought of as the weaker sex and the damsel in distress. Nevertheless, men in earlier history have taken a dim view on women killing their husbands when their point of view is, she is being provided for, regardless of his behavior. I call that view looking through rose-tinted glasses and the good oh boys club, as the saying goes, boys will be boys. I also believe a man mentality is “head verse heart,” when they think of woman in legalities. Mrs. Hale faces the situation mostly through her feelings (heart) and Mrs. Peters through her reason (head). As the story progresses and Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale begin to uncover evidence and understand each other’s view, they end up with a settings that connects the head and heart.

“Freud would not have been surprised by the decision taken by Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters for in 1925 he wrote that women’s superego was never “so inexorable, so impersonal, so independent of its emotional origins as we require it to be in men… for women the level of what is ethically normal is different from what it is in men… women show less sense of justice than men… they are less ready to submit to the great exigencies of life… they are more often influenced in their judgment by feelings of affection or hostility. Freud’s use of value-laden terms such as “less” emerges from a vision of moral development based upon a male model which tends “to regard male behavior as the ‘norm’ and female behavior as some kind of deviation from that norm.””(Mael)

In conclusion, even though we, the reader do not witness the crime, we begin to understand Mrs. Wright’s state of mind as Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters uncover clues about Mrs. Wright’s situation. The reader can analyze details that reveal Mrs. Wright’s emotional state before she takes action. The fact that Mrs. Wright’s main concern while she is in jail is about her jam jars bursting from the cold could be the result of shock or maybe it is an indication of how insignificant her relationship has been with her husband, they have grown so distant that she has no feeling for him. Drawing conclusions in the imagination things left half done is unusual and therefore strange behavior for Mrs. Wright, being a housewife. Whatever her cause we the reader observed confidence in Ms. Glaspell’s understanding of women’s truths and mindsets, and that is evident in her stories and plays. She also leaves an open discussion viewpoint or at least a sympatric concern still relevant today. To quote Susan Glaspell, in the novel Lifted Masks a collection of short stories. “What men have thought about life in the past is less important than what you feel about it to-day. The biggest stories are written about the things which draw human beings closer together.”(Glaspell)