Susan Keating Glaspell, Woman's Honor

Noelia Hernando-Real (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1918

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

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Recommended Reading

Susan Glaspell's

Woman's Honor

opened on 26th April 1918, during the second New York season of the Provincetown Players.

Woman's Honor

is considered one of Glaspell's lesser plays. Its significance, however, relies on its novel form as well as on Glaspell's criticism of sexual double standards.

The play opens in a room in the sheriff's house. There, Gordon Wallace is charged with murder and refuses to provide his alibi. The prisoner had been with a woman the night the murder was committed, but he will not tell the name of the woman because he has “to shield her own honor” (121). The lawyer, knowing that the best way to have the jury on Wallace's side is through their wives, has given out Wallace's “sacrifice” to the press. The lawyer's hope is that the jurors' wives will cry,

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1389 words

Citation: Hernando-Real, Noelia. "Woman's Honor". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 August 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16001, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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