Kerfol And Judith Wharton's

LAW, JUSTICE, AND FEMALE REVENGE IN "KERFOL", BY EDITH WHARTON, AND TRIFLES AND "A JURY OF HER PEERS", BY SUSAN GLASPELL
Janet Stobbs Wright Universidad Cardenal Herrera-CEU (Elche)

In 1916, Edith Wharton and Susan Glaspell coincided in each telling the story of a different fictional murderess. Although both works are written within different genres, there are striking similarities between the situations of these women who murdered their husbands. Even more arresting is the choice of the plot device of judicial examination of the facts to give textual representation to the reality of these women 's experience. Both writers explore the relation between official, legal narratives and suppressed, illegitimate stories, in which male and female
Posner claims that both techniques introduce a fictional audience "to play off against the audience for the work itself" (1988:78). In this way Anne 's trial returns to the past, but from a new perspective, determined by the narrator 's experience at the house in the first part. This means that the reader gives significance to elements of Anne 's story that are disregarded by the court. For 'house ', we read prison, marriage, appropriation, possession, property, isolation, patriarchy, and silence. For 'dogs ' we read repressed fulfilment, sexuality, independence, freedom, maternity and voice. According to this interpretation, Anne is guilty of a desperately violent and revoltingly bloody attack, carried out with surprising strength, which could signify a tremendous psychic rage and repressed female power. In this version of the case, Anne 's statement as witness takes on a new and horrifying significance: 'I heard dogs snarling and panting. ' … ' Then I heard a sound like the noise of a pack when the wolf is thrown to them—gulping and lapping. ' (There was a groan of disgust and repulsion through the court) ... She straightened herself to her full height, threw her arms above her head, and fell down on
Present in the kitchen are clues which will provide this evidence, but they blend so totally into the background of the woman 's domain of the kitchen that they go unnoticed by the men, who refer to these domestic trappings as 'trifles '. While the men are busy looking for clues which will tie in with a possible reconstruction of the crime, the women fall into their routine and pick up the pieces of Minnie Wright 's unfinished work. Although they use their eyes, as instructed by the men, it is their hands which unconsciously lead them to the clues. It is this shared experience of their environment and situation which enables them to decode the badly sewn block of the log cabin quilt she was knotting or quilting, her interrupted chores, and the piece of silk wrapped around the strangled canary 's body, and placed in the pretty box that Mrs. Hale finds in Minnie Wright 's sewing basket. The women instinctively know their way around Mrs. Wright 's kitchen and intuit her movements and intentions: "MRS. HALE. [Eyes fixed on a loaf of bread beside the breadbox, which is in a low shelf at the other side of the room. Moves slowly toward it.] She was going to put this in there. [Picks up loaf, then abruptly drops it. In a manner of returning to familiar things.]" (Glaspell 1985: 1393). It is their condition of rural farmhouse wives, inhabiting the same vital space, which leads them to