Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
trifles by susan glaspell in todays society
analysis of trifles by susan
women's role in 1890-1920
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: trifles by susan glaspell in todays society
Trifles
Susan Glaspell
(1876 – 1948)
The story of Trifles was written in 1916 which is a period in time when women played a minimal role at solving situations, and was thought of as not having much to say or do of importance. There were important issues that plagued women, such as birth control, socialism and women’s suffrage. Also during that time few women went to college or sought employment outside of the home. Women were thought of only being interested in little things of no importance thus the meaning of Trifles.
The characters in the play trifles all played a significant role in helping to describe the plot and the theme to this story. The plot was to find the motive for the murder. The theme is some time things as small as they are can mean so much more.
George Henderson who is the young county attorney that wants to know what happened in the home of John Wright the deceased. However he believes Mrs. Wright is responsible for the death of Mr. Wright but he needs evidence he needs the motive of why Mrs. Wright would kill her husband. He is focused on finding evidence that will directly connect Mrs. Wright to the murder. And in looking he is so oblivious to the things in the kitchen that can possibly give him a motive.
Henry Peters is middle age married Sheriff. He leads the investigation to the murder of Mr. Wright. His character is of importance because of his occupation and what it symbolizes for his wife Mrs. Peters.
Lewis Hale the neighbor to Mr. and Mrs. Wright. He was the person to find Mr. Wright dead in his bed and Mrs. Wright sitting in the house quietly. He tries to speak of the character or Mr. Wright when he began to tell his story of the events leading to his visit with Mrs. Wright, but the sheriff woul...
... middle of paper ...
...the information they discovered a secret among themselves.
Overall this was a good story however this story reiterated something that I knew all along, that women are practical and smart.
Works Cited
”Historical Context”. BookRags. BookRags and Gale's For Students Series, 2103, Web.27 Nov 2013.
Cummings, Michael. “Plot Summary.”Cummings Study Guide.N.P, 2008. Web. 17 November 2013.
Glaspell, Susan. “Trifles.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing”. Ed. Edgar V.Roberts and Robert Zweig. 5th Compact ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2012. 914-26. Print.
Wang, Bella. Chazelle, Damien ed. "Trifles Study Guide : Summary and Analysis of Part I". GradeSaver, 31 August 2009 Web. 24 November 2013.
Wikipedia contributors. "Women's suffrage." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, 27 Nov. 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
Trifles is a play that shows clearly how women were treated and ridiculed by men in the 1900’s. It is a one-act play that took place at the farmhouse of John Wright.
My initial inspiration for this piece was Trifles, which funnily enough only shares the characteristic of detectives being involved within the plot. As per suggestion on my proposal, I developed my idea of detectives solving a case further by including dialogue and inter-personnel relationships similar to those found in Glengarry Glen Ross. Taking the idea of different members of the real-estate office discussing work and plotting in Glengarry Glen Ross, and applying them to a trio of detectives on a case was interesting to say the least.
and Trifles and 'A Jury of Her Peers,' by Susan Glaspell." Atlantis 24.1 (June 2002): 299-
Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Literature and the Writing Process. Elizabeth Mahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 2002. 977-986
Trifles is an excellent example of gender stratification at the most basic level: everyday conversation and behaviour. Interactionists have observed common patterns which reoccur in everyday interaction between men and women. Like in Glaspell’s work, men have been shown to regularly change the topic of conversation and disregard a woman’s ideas. (Kumbamu) Throughout the play the County Attorney interrupts or considers the women’s concerns to be merely ‘trifles’ by wishing to ‘talk more of that…later.’(Glaspell 141) The women’s actions exemplify what are considered to be female behavioral roles. The women except and do not challenge the obvious male verbal dominance and instead prove to be adaptable to the circumstances and provide emotional support. (Kumbamu) Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are unwillingly put into a ‘lonesome’ environment they normally would have stayed away from. (Glaspell 143)
Susan Glaspell highlights the settings as theatrical metaphors for male dominated society in the early 20th century. “Trifles” begins with an investigation into the murder of Mr. Wright. The crime scene is taken at his farmhouse where clues are found that reveals Minnie Wright to be a suspect of murder. In the beginning of the play, it clearly embodies the problems of subordination of women. For example, there are two main characters in this play—Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, who are brought along with the sheriff and attorney to find evidence for Mr. Wright’s murder. The men gather and work together at the stove and they talk with each other in familiarity while women “stand close together near the door behind men” (Glaspell 444). Perhaps the location of the women standing behind the men near the door reflects also their secondary or inferior social standing in the eyes of the men. Moreover, it seems that the wo...
Trifles is based on a murder in 1916 that Susan Glaspell covered while she was a journalist with the Des Moines Daily News after she graduated from college. At the end of the nineteenth century, the world of literature saw a large increase of female writers. Judith Fetterley believed that there was an extremely diverse and intriguing body of prose literature used during the nineteenth century by American women. The main idea of this type of literature was women and their lives. The reason all of the literature written by women at this time seems so depressing is due to the fact that they had a tendency to incorporate ideas from their own lives into their works. Glaspell's Trifles lives up to this form of literature, especially since it is based on an actual murder she covered. This play is another look at the murder trial through a woman's point of view.
Susan Glaspell's Trifles explores the classical male stereotype of women by declaring that women frequently worry about matters of little, or no importance. This stereotype makes the assumption that only males are concerned with important issues, issues that females would never discuss or confront. The characters spend the entirety of the play searching for clues to solve a murder case. Ironically, the female characters, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, uncover crucial evidence and solve the murder case, not the male characters. The men in the play, the Sheriff, County Attorney, and Hale, search the scene of the crime for evidence on their own, and mock the women's discussions. The women's interest in the quilt, broken bird cage door, and dead canary, all of which are assumed to be unimportant or trifling objects, is what consequentially leads to their solving of the crime. The women are able to discover who the killer is by paying attention to detail, and prove that the items which the men consider insignificant are important after all.
Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, and Writing. By Michael Meyer. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin's, 2011. 1366-375. Print.
The strong women characters in Trifles allow for feminist discussion, but also question the classic gender roles present at any point in time. Through the crime committed by Minnie Wright, three women grow together and establish that justice for all is deeper than finding the culprit. Justice occurs in all things, in hiding the clues by Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, in the quiet dignity they both have by helping their friend, and by proving that women are capable of anything they are determined to
The title of this drama "Trifles" demonstrates how men have the assumption that women and their respective actions are seemingly unimportant. Trifles can be used in two forms in the English language. In verb form, trifle means to treat someone or something as unimportant or non-essential. The word trifle in noun form means something of little value or importance. Both definitions of this word yield an idea in this story that women are seen as trivial and are not worthy of respect by men. This idea is conveyed throughout the entire story by the belittling assumptions and attitude the men use toward the women. For example Hale says, " Well, women are used to worrying over trifles" (1003). Typically, a kitchen represents women's work and the idea of domesticity. In Glaspell's eyes, men tend to assume that nothing of importance occurs in the kitchen and this can be related to the idea that women are insignificant. As Glaspell writes,
In the play Trifles, a handful of people are thrust into a situation that allows us to compare their personalities. The comparison of Mrs. Hale and Mr. Wright is captivating because both characters have striking similarities and differences that are well defined in the events that unfold in the Wright kitchen. Though both show emotions that are unlike from one another, they are similar in their organized lifestyles, and they conduct themselves in such a way to have the respect from others.
Susan Glaspell's play, "Trifles", attempts to define one of the main behavioral differences between man and woman. For most of the story, the two genders are not only geographically separated, but also separated in thought processes and motive, so that the reader might readily make comparisons between the two genders. Glaspell not only verbally acknowledges this behavioral difference in the play, but also demonstrates it through the characters' actions and the turns of the plot. The timid and overlooked women who appear in the beginning of the play eventually become the delicate detectives who, discounted by the men, discover all of the clues that display a female to be the disillusioned murderer of her (not so dearly) departed husband. Meanwhile, the men in the play not only arrogantly overlook the "trifling" clues that the women find that point to the murderer, but also underestimate the murderer herself. "These were trifles to the men but in reality they told the story and only the women could see that (Erin Williams)". The women seem to be the insightful unsung heroes while the men remain outwardly in charge, but sadly ignorant.
Susan Glaspell’s Trifles (1916), is a play that accounts for imprisonment and loneliness of women in a patriarchal society. The plot has several instances where women issues are perceived to be mere trifles by their male counterparts. The title is of significant importance in supporting the main theme of the story and developing the plot that leads to the evidence of the mysterious murder. Trifles can be defined as things of less importance; in this story dramatic, verbal and situational irony is used to show how the insignificant trifles lead to a great deal of truth in a crime scene investigation. The title of the story “Trifles” is used ironically to shape the unexpected evidence discovered by women in
One woman’s Trifles is another man’s clues. The play Trifles, was written by Susan Glaspell based on the murder of John Hossack, which Susan reported on while working as a news journalist for Des Moines Daily News. Susan Glaspell was an American Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, actress, novelist, journalist, and founder of the Provincetown Players. She has written nine novels, fifteen plays, over fifty short stories, and one biography. At 21 she enrolled at Drake University even after the prevailing belief that college make women unfit for marriage. But many don’t know that her work was only published after the death of her husband George Cram Cook. Trifles is an example of a feminist drama. The play shows how male dominance was