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1. How do texts adhere to and deviate from conventions associated with literary forms or text types?

2. How do conventions and systems of reference evolve over time?

3. In what ways can diverse texts share points of similarity?

4. How valid is the notion of a classic text?

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6. In what ways can comparison and interpretation be transformative?

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1. Why and how do we study language and literature?

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3. In what ways is meaning constructed, negotiated, expressed and interpreted?

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1. How important is cultural or historical context to the production and reception of a text?

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1. Culture
2. Perspective
3. Communication

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1 - Speech Conventions Persuasive Techniques

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Susan Glaspell, in full Susan Keating Glaspell, (born July 1, 1876, Davenport, Iowa, U.S.-died July 27, 1948, Provincetown, Mass.), American dramatist and novelist who, with her husband, George Cram Cook, founded the influential Provincetown Players in 1915.

Glaspell graduated in 1899 from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. In college she had published a few short stories in the Youth's Companion and had worked as college correspondent for a local newspaper, and on graduating she became a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News. In 1901 she returned to her native Davenport to devote herself to writing; her stories, mainly local-colour pieces set in Freeport (Davenport), were soon appearing regularly in such magazines as the Ladies' Home Journal, the American, and Harper's.

In 1909 Glaspell published her first novel, The Glory of the Conquered, a romance of little distinction that nonetheless enjoyed some success. After a year in Paris she produced a second novel, The Visioning (1911). In 1912 a collection of previously published stories appeared under the title Lifted Masks. The following year she married Cook, a longtime friend and the literary and radical son of a wealthy Davenport family. They quickly became central figures in the life of Greenwich Village in New York City. In 1915 she published Fidelity, a novel, and together with her husband Suppressed Desires, a satirical one-act play on popular Freudianism. These works show a wide stylistic range, from psychological realism to Symbolism and Expressionism.

In 1915, at their summer home in Provincetown on Cape Cod, the couple organized a group of local artists as an amateur theatre group and staged a number of one-act plays in a converted fish warehouse. The next year Eugene O'Neill was introduced to the group, which soon became more formally organized as the Provincetown Players. They began presenting a winter season of performances at the Playwright's Theatre in Greenwich Village. Glaspell wrote several one-act plays for the group, notably Trifles (1916), Close the Book (1917), A Woman's Hour (1918), and Tickless Time (1919), and four full-length plays, including Bernice (1919), Inheritors (1921), and The Verge (1921).

In 1922 Glaspell and Cook established themselves at Delphi, Greece, where he died two years later. Glaspell returned to New York and in 1927 published a biography of her husband entitled The Road to the Temple. Subsequently she published The Comic Artist (1927), a play on which she collaborated with Norman H. Matson (to whom she was married for a time), and Alison's House (1930), a play that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Her later novels included The Fugitive's Return (1929) and The Morning Is Near Us (1939).

J.E. Luebering, Executive Editorial Director.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

...married the novelist and playwright Susan Glaspell, also from Davenport. While summering at Provincetown, Mass., they launched the Provincetown Players in a former fish warehouse, initially to perform their jointly written one-act play Suppressed Desires (1915, published 1920), a satire on psychoanalysis. Cook continued with the group in New York...

...Heaton Vorse, George Cram Cook, Susan Glaspell, Hutchins Hapgood, Wilbur Steele, and Robert Edmond Jones....

Local colour, style of writing derived from the presentation of the features and peculiarities of a particular locality and its inhabitants. Although the term local colour can be applied to any type of writing, it is used almost exclusively to describe a kind of American literature that in its most-characteristic...

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Susan Glaspell | American dramatist and novelist

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Susan Glaspell, American dramatist and novelist who, with her husband, George Cram Cook, founded the influential Provincetown Players in 1915. Glaspell graduated in 1899 from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. In college she had published a few short stories in the Youth's Companion and had

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Countdown to Paper One - Speech - Conventions and Close Reading

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Susan Glaspell (1876 - 1948) co-founded the first modern American theater company, the Provincetown Players, and was a Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, actress, novelist, and journalist. Most of her nine novels, fourteen plays and over fifty short stories are set in Iowa, where she was raised. Trifles (1916), her one-act play based on the murder trial she covered as a young reporter, is considered one of the great works in American theater as well as an important piece of feminist literature.

Glaspell was raised to value hard work on a farm in rural Davenport, Iowa. She often wrote about being worthy inheritors of the land, and was greatly influenced by the writings of Black Hawk, the Sauk American Indian chief, on whose former land she was raised. Susan was a precocious student, becoming a journalist at 18, and writing her own column at 20, using it to poke fun at Davenport's upper-class. She went to Drake University and excelled as a debater, representing the school at the state debates her senior year. (The photo featured in this biographical sketch is her 1948 graduation picture.)

In her early professional career, Glaspell excelled in a male-dominated field, becoming a reporter for The Des Moines Daily News where she covered murder cases and the state legislature.

She quit the paper and began writing and publishing fiction stories for Harper's and The Ladies' Home Journal, which financed her move to Chicago, where she wrote her first book, The Glory of the Conquered (1909), which became a The New York Times best-seller, allowing her to tour Europe for a year, extending her artistic range and influences.

Though well regarded for her short stories and novels, her plays earned her the greatest prestige and recognition for their ground-breaking influence. Trifles (1916) was considered a feminist masterpiece and Inheritors (1921) was considered the first modern historical drama, chronicling three generations of pioneer life. Glaspell discovered Eugene O'Neil while scouting for her playwright company's productions. Also associated with her company were Edna St. Vincent Millay, Theodore Dreiser and Floyd Dell.

Though her theater company was a critical success, it didn't earn enough to pay the bills, so Glaspell continued to write and sell her short stories to make ends meet. A Jury of Her Peers (1927) was a short story version of her famous play, Trifles. Glaspell won the Pulitzer Prize for her play, Alison's House (1931). She lived out her years in Provincetown, Rhode Island until her death in 1948. Interest in her plays languished until the 1970's, when her works were rediscovered and are often featured in the core curriculum of women's studies programs in U.S. colleges and universities. Glaspell's work is featured in our Feminist Literature Study Guide, Pulitzer Prizes, and Mystery Stories.

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Susan Glaspell (1876 - 1948) co-founded the first modern American theater company, the Provincetown Players, and was a Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, actress, novelist, and journalist. Most of her nine novels, fourteen plays and over fifty short stories are set in Iowa, where she was raised.

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'Trifles' by Susan Glaspell, performed by The Edge Ensemble Theater Company

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LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Trifles, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.

Social Oppression of Women

The play presents a world of strict gender roles, in which the men occupy the sphere of work while the women exist solely in the home. Yet the separation of men's and women's spheres is not merely one of a division of labor. Rather, Trifles portrays a world, dominated by men, in which social expectations and restrictions have essentially confined women to the home and bound them to their husbands, with little control or identity...

read analysis of Social Oppression of Women

As described in the theme on the Social Oppression of Women, Trifles' use of gender roles establishes the men in the sphere of work and influence and the women in the sphere of the home and trifling concerns. Yet, at the same time, the title of the play highlights the trifling concerns that the men mock, and in doing so emphasizes that the "trifles" that the men overlook because they are feminine concerns...

read analysis of The Blindness of Men

Gender Allegiance vs. Legal Duty

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are torn between their loyalty to another woman - a loyalty born of their shared experience of social oppression - and their duty to obey the law and present the evidence they uncover. The men in the play stress the importance of legal duty, particularly reminding the sheriff's wife Mrs. Peters, that she is, for all intents and purposes, "married to the law." Responsibility to the law is thereby equated...

read analysis of Gender Allegiance vs. Legal Duty

Trifles might be described as a kind of murder mystery. Yet a murder mystery usually ends with the criminal being brought to justice, and instead in this murder mystery it is the idea of justice itself that is complicated. In discovering the dead bird, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find evidence that serves as a motive for Minnie's killing of her husband but also, from their viewpoint, somewhat justifies Minnie Wright's act of...

read analysis of Justice

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LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Trifles, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. Social Oppression of Women The play presents a world of strict gender roles, in which the men occupy the sphere of work while the women exist solely in the home.

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In-depth explanations of Trifles's themes. Free, fun, and packed with easy-to-understand explanations!

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More than 100 years ago, the Suffragettes in the UK succeeded in bringing the vote to a portion of the country's women: those over the age of 30 who were landholders (or their wives) or who rented property at an annual rate of at least £5, as well as graduates of British universities. It wouldn't be until 1928, and the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act, that women were given the same voting rights as men.

Deeds Not Words

Although suffragist groups existed from the mid nineteenth century, their peaceful approach to requesting enfranchisement using education and debate ultimately failed to change minds. The result was the founding and rapid growth of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) by Emmeline Pankhurst, with her daughters Christabel and Sylvia.

With their now-famous motto 'Deeds Not Words', this group was much more militant than its predecessors. Members protested, blew up pillar boxes, smashed up shop fronts, and older members even went so far as to buy gun licences to scare the authorities into thinking revolution was imminent. Famously, Suffragettes were imprisoned and treated terribly by their captors, being force-fed sometimes hundreds of times against their will, with lasting physical and mental consequences.

There could be no doubt that the vote and the move to equality was paramount to the women (and sometimes men) of the suffrage movement. Some gave their lives for the cause - the most famous, though not the first, being Emily Wilding Davison in 1913, who threw herself in front of the King's horse at Epsom Derby - while other endured months and years of being on the run.

Ultimately, the Suffragettes achieved their goal of enfranchisement for women and the movement has rightfully gone down in history as one of the strongest and most successful women's rights groups. Today, the battle for women's enfranchisement has been all but won, but equality still hovers just out of reach. With such high-profile campaigns as #HeForShe and the #TimesUp and #MeToo movements, perhaps the methods have changed but the goal of equality remains strong.

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Although suffragist groups existed from the mid nineteenth century, their peaceful approach to requesting enfranchisement using education and debate ultimately failed to change minds. The result was the founding and rapid growth of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) by Emmeline Pankhurst, with her daughters Christabel and Sylvia.

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Archives of Women's Political Communication

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It is always very difficult for me to make a speech on woman suffrage. I always feel that it belongs to the last century rather than this. The men who foresaw that the Negroes would need the protection of the ballot ought to have given it to the women. The best of them, like Theodore Parker and Abraham Lincoln, were concerned when they saw women going into industry without it. The eighteenth century was a century of big theories and much discussion about them. Today things have changed. Now we are looking after all sorts of minute and pressing things; and when we would lay our hands on that little mechanism, the ballot -- not because we want to talk about it, but because we need to use it -- it is embarrassing to find that we have not got it. It is annoying to have to stop in the midst of our social work and realize that we cannot pass important measures till we obtain a vote, and that we must start parades and hold meetings and maybe throw things before we get it.

But our method of approach to it may be useful. The ballot may arrive as function grows by pushing on the organism; it may come life a thief in the night.
From Charity to Politics
I have been interested to see, in this National Conference of Charities and in the Conferences of several successive years, how one thing after another which began as charities are moving over into the sphere of political action. Take the Children's Committee, as the most feminine; for the nurture and protection of children will always be especially woman's work. We are trying to secure pensions for widowed mothers left with young children. We want the State, instead of taking the children away from their mother and paying for boarding each of them separately in an institution or in some family, to pool the sum that would have to be paid for them all and use it to enable the mother to keep the family together, without the children's being deprived of her care, as they must if she has to go out to earn their living. This question will finally have to be decided by votes.

Take any of the subjects considered at this Conference, say the one that has attracted so much attention, the question of the standard of living, and what the State may do to insure a certain minimum of health and decency even to the poorest people. Immediately we find ourselves in the turmoil of political discussion, and we should be very glad to find ourselves in the turmoil of political action.
Indirectness Unsatisfactory
We find the indirect method very unsatisfactory. When you want a change in the law, you address meetings and clubs and bodies of voters of all sorts; you talk to your neighbors; you instruct and entreat great numbers of men, young and old; and, even if you do not care a rap for your dignity, or for anything but your cause, you feel that this roundabout way is needlessly laborious, and you find yourself thrown back upon the old teasing methods which you thought you had abandoned in your childhood.
All Roads Lead to Suffrage
At every turn we are brought up to the desire to have a vote. Almost every subject in which women are interested leads right up to it. When I am asked to give the reasons why women should have the ballot, the reasons are too many to name. I had a lecture once, illustrating them in detail. I have almost forgotten it now, though I gave it many times. It showed why any woman in Chicago, -- Italian, Bohemian, or Jewish -- needed the vote. I had my illustrations all along the line, attaching her to the city government by her need of dry basements and of fire escapes, to the State government by her need of laws regulating hours of labor in factories, and to the national government by her need of pure food for her family, etc.
Just a Survival
Foreign-born women in my neighborhood are always asking me why women do not vote at municipal elections in Chicago, as they do in so many of the countries from which they come -- England, Ireland, Scandinavia, etc. I am at a loss how to answer them. I believe it is simply because of tradition; because, away back, it was considered unladylike to take part in government, in the days when government was concerned mainly with the seizing and keeping of loot, and was somewhat uproarious. The ballot is such a simple device, and so far away from the clashing of shields! Yet we cannot get away from that old idea. But if we keep on straining to the extent of our powers, this tradition will break down, as it is already breaking, here and there and everywhere.
Did Not Represent Hull House
When our suffrage bill was pending in the Illinois legislature this year, Mrs. McCulloch interviewed the Italian who represented our district. She told him that he represented the ladies at Hull House, all of whom wanted to vote, and that he ought to support the bill. He went away a good deal troubled. I think he was [conscientious]. But after he had talked with some other members of the Legislature, he came back looking much relieved, and said, "Why, Mrs. McCulloch, I don't represent the ladies at Hull House. I represent the voters!"
Don't Press Men Too Hard
I don't believe in urging a man to vote against his convictions. I don't even believe in trying too hard to persuade him by using that moral compulsion which moralists exert when they are feeling especially moral. But the women should have votes to represent themselves. The problems of our time will be solved only when all of the best mind, conscience and talent in the community are brought to their solution.

I do not believe in bringing too great pressure to bear on men, even if they do think so much more of opening a tunnel in the city than of improved tenements. Let them have their tunnel; let us have the man's point of view, but let these other people's point of view be represented also.

We are no longer called upon to deal with the great abstractions of the eighteenth century. We must have the humbler task of pushing forward the utilitarian side, but the utilitarian side in its highest sense. When people realize that the highest interests of the city cannot be secured and preserved except by the co-operation of men and women in government, I think we shall be surprised by the quick way in which the franchise will come to our hands.

"Jane Addams' Speech," in "Notable Speeches," Woman's Journal 42 (June 17, 1911): 185-86.
Addams, Jane, "Speech on Woman Suffrage, June 17, 1911," Jane Addams Digital Edition, accessed October 25, 2018, https://digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/7333.

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Speech on Woman Suffrage - June 17, 1911

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It is always very difficult for me to make a speech on woman suffrage. I always feel that it belongs to the last century rather than this. The men who foresaw that the Negroes would need the protection of the ballot ought to have given it to the women.

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A series of ads, developed as a creative idea for UN Women by Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai, uses genuine Google searches to reveal the widespread prevalence of sexism and discrimination against women. Based on searches dated 9 March, 2013 the ads expose negative sentiments ranging from stereotyping as well as outright denial of women's rights.

"When we came across these searches, we were shocked by how negative they were and decided we had to do something with them," says Christopher Hunt, Art Director of the creative team. The idea developed places the text of the Google searches over the mouths of women portraits, as if to silence their voices.

"The ads are shocking because they show just how far we still have to go to achieve gender equality. They are a wake up call, and we hope that the message will travel far," adds Kareem Shuhaibar, copy writer.

For UN Women, the searches confirm the urgent need to continue making the case for women's rights, empowerment and equality, a cause the organization is pursuing around the world. UN Women is heartened by the initial strong reaction to the ads and hopes they will spark constructive dialogue globally.
Join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag: #womenshould
Watch "The Autocomplete Truth", a new video by Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai highlighting gains and remaining challenges for women's equality:

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UN Women ad series reveals widespread sexism

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A series of ads, developed as a creative idea for UN Women by Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai, uses genuine Google searches to reveal the widespread prevalence of sexism and discrimination against women. Based on searches dated 9 March, 2013 the ads expose negative sentiments ranging from stereotyping as well as outright denial of women's rights.

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Re-making of gender biased Advertisements

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Re-making of gender biased Advertisements

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This artist's GENDER twist to old ads gives men a taste of their own SEXIST poison

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Visual artist and photographer Eli Rezkallah revamped vintage ads in his series called 'In A Parallel Universe' to give men a taste of their own sexist poison. See pictures.

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70 - Paper One - Speech - Malcolm X Text and Annotations

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Countdown to Paper One - Speech - Sample Student Response

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71 - Paper One  - Speech - Malcolm X Sample Response and Outline

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Countdown to Paper One - Website - Conventions and Close Reading

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68 - Paper One - How To Read a Website - Conventions

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Countdown to Paper One - Public Service Announcement (PSA) - Conventions and Close Reading

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Recently rediscovered 100-year-old posters showing the struggle for votes for women are going on show for the first time. They pull no punches in their depiction of the strength of feeling among the women who fought for equal rights.

Addressed simply to "the Librarian", a bundle wrapped in plain brown paper was delivered to Cambridge University Library sometime around 1910, and it took over 100 years for the contents of the parcel to be rediscovered, in 2016, preserved in their original wrapping.

Underneath the faded paper was one of the largest surviving collections of suffrage posters from the early 20th Century.

They had been sent by a leading figure of the suffrage movement, Marion Phillips, who became Labour MP for Sunderland in 1929.

It is unclear why Phillips sent the posters.

"They were created to be plastered on walls, torn down by weather or political opponents," says Chris Burgess, exhibitions officer at the library. "So it is highly unusual for this material to be safely stored."

gThe posters going on show to mark the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, which gave the vote to women over the age of 30.

Because of Cambridge's prestigious university, local suffrage posters often featured women in academic dress.

Artists observed that the city's educated women were still grouped - in the eyes of the law - with the likes of convicts and lunatics.

Although Cambridge's women-only colleges such as Girton and Newnham had very active suffrage societies, the university itself was far from progressive.

By the end of the 19th Century, women were allowed to study at the university but were not given full degrees at the end of their studies. When an 1897 vote proposed to change this, there was outrage.

An effigy of a lady cyclist - a symbol of the new woman - was torn down and destroyed to the delight of the jeering crowds of male students.

Posters also tried to appeal to working-class women, such as those working in textile factories or at home as seamstresses.

Some pointed out that these women were not even able to vote on laws that concerned women's regulations and rights.

This meant men were voting on what they believed to be best for women.

Lucy Delap, a historian specialising in this period, says most people in the UK were against women getting the vote.

As a result, "the suffrage movement definitely had to reach out to many women".

"Campaigning went far beyond the simple equality message - to point out how the vote could make a difference in households, at work, on the streets - matters that concerned all women," she says.

Print production was central to the suffrage campaigns.

"People would be cranking out handbills to be distributed the same day through networks of sash-wearing volunteers, or printing posters advertising meetings taking place that same evening," says Delap.

To appeal to the widest audience, Delap says, the suffrage posters took inspiration from the tabloids, using eye-catching headlines, large cartoons and photographs.

And the suffragists were media-savvy political campaigners - reacting to the policies of the day.

In 1909, there was a national outcry when Home Secretary Herbert Gladstone ordered that imprisoned protestors on hunger strike should be force-fed.

John Bull - a fictional figure commonly used to personify the UK, and England in particular - is depicted in the image above.

Without the help of a woman, he is struggling alone with children and housework, visual metaphors for the social problems of the Edwardian era.

This poster suggests if women could vote, then problems including infant mortality, poor schooling and unemployment might more easily be solved for the benefit of everyone.

"Handicapped" was one of the most popular posters of the suffrage campaign, painted by Bloomsbury Group artist Duncan Grant.

It shows a young privileged man being easily propelled forwards by votes, while a woman struggles on choppier waters in a simple row boat.

Mrs Partington was another familiar figure used by the UK press at the time.

She was usually seen trying to stem progress with her mop.

In this case, she is trying to stop the seeming flood of support for women's votes.

The poster below called for support for political organisations - listed on the children's bibs - to be withdrawn until women were able to participate at the ballot box.

Some posters explicitly call for "law-abiding" meetings. Delap says the movement was split over whether more violent action was needed.

"There were militants who were willing to break the law: smashing windows, destroying golf courses, burning buildings," she says.

"There were also non-violent actions that broke the law - refusing to fill in the census, refusing to pay tax without representation - a range of creative tactics.

"But just to stand on a box in the marketplace, as many women did, provoked public fury, peltings with rotten vegetables and even police brutality.

"To be a female suffrage activist of any kind was a militant act."

Our Weapon is Public Opinion: Posters of the Women's Suffrage Movement is on display at Cambridge University Library from 3 February.

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The 100-year-old protest posters that show women's outrage

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Recently rediscovered 100-year-old posters showing the struggle for votes for women are going on show for the first time. They pull no punches in their depiction of the strength of feeling among the women who fought for equal rights.

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The ‘envers du décor’ of Suffragette Imagery: Anti-Suffrage Caricature

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During the Victorian and Edwardian periods the Antis, as they were called, organized and campaigned against those who fought for women’s rights. The specific aspect of the anti-suffrage campaign th…

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Netflix’s ‘Maid’ Is an Empathetic Portrait of Poverty

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The poignant drama based on Stephanie Land’s memoir explores why having friends and family may not mean having support