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The role of women in 20th century novels
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Womans roles 1920s essay
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Examination of Mrs Wright in Trifles by Susan Glaspell
The play ?Trifles?, by Susan Glaspell , is an examination of the different levels of early 1900?s mid-western farming society?s attitudes towards women and equality. The obvious theme in this story is men discounting women?s intelligence and their ability to play a man?s role, as detectives, in the story. A less apparent theme is the empathy the women in the plot find for each other. Looking at the play from this perspective we see a distinct set of characters, a plot, and a final act of sacrifice.
The three main characters, Mrs. Peters, the Sheriff?s wife, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Wright are all products of an oppressive society which denies them their right to think and speak freely, in the case of Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, and denies them their right to a happy, free life as in Mrs. Wright?s case. Throughout the play Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are able to find clues to the motive for the murder from their detailed knowledge of simple housewifery of which the men are ignorant. They also are forced to find an empathy for Mrs. Wright as they compare their own experiences to the clues they discover of her life. In the end this empathy causes them to make a decision which also casts them into the underdog?s lot of women fighting for their freedom in the early part of our century.
At the opening of the play we find the two women not taking a very active part in the play. In fact, they seem a little disconcerted to be on the scene of a murder, their only words as they stand by cold door on a cold night is ?I?m not ? cold.?(1170) The women do not start to take an active role in the story until the county attorney finds the broken preserves jars in the cabinets. ...
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... bird and hiding it from the men to save Mrs. Wright. The unity the ladies have found with each other and Mrs. Wright is stated by Mrs. Hale in the final line of the play. ?We call it ? knot it, Mr. Henderson.?(1179) This has a double meaning, one that the ladies were united by their common bond of living in a male controlled world, where men think women are only good for such activities as quilting and housework. Second, that the women are united by their common bond of fighting for each other. Her reference to knotting the quilt can also be construed as a reference to knotting Mr. Wright?s neck. This final retaliatory remark shows the determination of women in that era to fight for equal rights and sisterhood, no matter what the moral cost.
Works Cited:
Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles" The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Bedford/St.Martins: Boston 2005.
The symbolism used in this play is directed at the need for equal rights for women, and the role many men played in squashing that dream. The bird and bird cage are metaphors for the laws in place which prevent women from voting and the need to be free from those oppressors. The singing of the bird is symbolically the out crying of a nation of women who demand the right to vote. Also the husband, who broke the bird’s neck, represents the men who oppressed and opposed women, and who ultimately meet their demise. The last truly symbolic instance is the knotting of the rope and the knotting of the stitches. The fact that the women in this play stay together till the end, draws back upon the very essence of the women’s suffrage movement.
The major idea I want to write about has to do with the way Mrs. Hale stands behind Mrs. Wright even though it seems like everyone else especially (the men) would rather lock her up and throw away the key. We see this right away when she gets on the County Attorney for putting down Mrs. Wright’s house keeping. I find this to be wonderfully symbolic in that most women of this time usually allowed the men to say whatever they wanted about their sex, never standing up for themselves or each other
Susan Glaspell in Trifles explores the repression of women. Since the beginning of time, women have been looked down upon by men. They have been considered “dumb” and even a form of property. Being physically and emotionally abused by men, women in the early 1900’s struggled to break the mold formed by society.
In fact, when Mrs. Hale comments that Mrs. Wright was not one for housekeeping, Mrs. Peters replies by saying “Well, I don’t know as Wright had either.” (748). The disheveled state that the house is in, as well as the fact that Mr. Wright is characterized as a hard man who is unwilling to share his part expresses the idea that their marriage was unhappy, and in turn, Mrs. Wright could have motive to harm him. Likewise, when the men leave the women to find clothes for Mrs. Wright, the two discover more possible evidence that the men will shrug off. For example, Mrs. Hale examines some quilt work that Mrs. Wright was working on, and notices that the most recent square is very sloppy compared to the rest of the work on the quilt. Moreover, the fact that they believe she crafted it by knotting is very significant (750). This correlation times closely with Mr. Wright’s time of death, and could indicate as a stressor, which the women can pick up on. Since the men laugh at their seemingly trivial observation, they are close to solving the crime on their
Trifles by Susan Glaspell is a one-act play centered around a woman, Mrs. Wright, who allegedly murdered her husband, Mr. Wright, in the night. There are no witnesses of his death; only unofficial confessions and he-said she-said talk. Without viable evidence and information (and the absence of Mrs. Wright altogether), the play soon focuses on a group of people who gather at the Wrights’ home the day after the murder. These characters include a male sheriff, county attorney, and neighboring farmer and their two wives. It is their job to determine what truly happened to Mr. Wright and piece together any evidence that would enable the conviction of Mrs. Wright. It is with the plot, setting, and overall use of symbolism that Glaspell communicates her message and themes. These messages and themes, which are the glue to the play, allow the audience to understand how unhappy of a life Mrs. Wright lived and how men viewed women’s roles as unimportant.
From the play “Trifles” written by Susan Glaspell I’ll be explaining the role of the women characters and how they were portrayed in the story. The play describes setting with homicide, mystery and dishonesty among its characters. It's a play that bases on stereotypes in relationships and attitudes between men and woman at this time in our history. The male characters play the powerful leader being for example, the sheriff, deputy and the attorney where the female characters Mrs. Peter and Mrs. Hale in a kind of seen but not heard role. Who were sent out to learn more about the details of the murder of Mr. Wright, who was found hanged in his bed.
A work of literature often subtlety alludes to a situation in society that the author finds particularly significant. Susan Glaspell incorporates social commentary into her play Trifles. By doing so, she highlights the gender stratification that exists even in the most basic interactions and presents a way to use this social barrier to an acceptable end. Despite being written almost a century before present day, Glaspell’s findings and resulting solution are still valid in a modern context. Trifles demonstrates the roles of men and women in their everyday behaviour and interaction. The women use their ascribed positions to accomplish what the men cannot and have the ability to deliberately choose not to help the men with their newfound knowledge.
Mrs. Hale’s keen wit and patience contributes to her embodiment of The Fate sister Clotho the Spinner, which is even more evident in her correcting of Minnie Wright’s improper stitching (Russell). Mrs. Peters begins the process of investigation deeply devoted to keeping the law. She doesn’t want any disruption in the house, saying, “I don’t think we ought to touch things” (Glaspell p. 666) when Mrs. Hale began searching for clues. Upon finding the dead canary, Mrs. Peters view on the situation changes drastically, and she decides with Mrs. Hale to hide the tiny dead bird from the men. They both figure that if the dead canary was discovered, Mrs. Wright would be thought to be a mad woman, though it was likely Mr. Wright who killed it.
In the 19th Century, women had different roles and treated differently compared to today’s women in American society. In the past, men expected women to carry out the duties of a homemaker, which consisted of cleaning and cooking. In earlier years, men did not allow women to have opinions or carry on a job outside of the household. As today’s societies, women leave the house to carry on jobs that allow them to speak their minds and carry on roles that men carried out in earlier years. In the 19th Century, men stereotyped women to be insignificant, not think with their minds about issues outside of the kitchen or home. In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, the writer portrays how women in earlier years have no rights and men treat women like dirt. Trifles is based on real life events of a murder that Susan Glaspell covered during her work as a newspaper reporter in Des Moines and the play is based off of Susan Glaspell’s earlier writing, “A Jury of Her Peers”. The play is about a wife of a farmer that appears to be cold and filled with silence. After many years of the husband treating the wife terrible, the farmer’s wife snaps and murders her husband. In addition, the play portrays how men and women may stick together in same sex roles in certain situations. The men in the play are busy looking for evidence of proof to show Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. As for the women in the play, they stick together by hiding evidence to prove Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. Although men felt they were smarter than women in the earlier days, the play describes how women are expected of too much in their roles, which could cause a woman to emotionally snap, but leads to women banding together to prove that women can be...
The men in the play are so blinded by their sexist ideas about females, that they miss the evidence of a motive to convict Mrs. Wright of murder. The men, after hearing the women discuss how Mrs. Wright was worried about her jarred fruit freezing, make several comments regarding the fact that this is something trivial that a woman would worry about even while being held for the possibility of murder. Mr. Hale makes the comment, “-Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.” (pp. 945) At one point Mrs. Hale mentions that the Wright home never seemed to be a cheerful place. ...
By the end of the play Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters found the dead canary in Mrs. Wright’s sewing kit. The canary had marks around its neck inferring that it had been strangled just like Mr. Wright, but they faced a dilemma on whether or not to turn in the evidence. In the end they decided to withhold the evidence from their husbands. By keeping this evidence from their husbands the two women chose to defend not only Mrs. Wright, but all women during this time period. They felt that the prejudices and discriminatory acts of men during this time period towards women were not acceptable. Men of this time belittled their wives and these women tried to challenge that philosophy. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale help show the audience what women in this time period had to endure in order to get back their freedom.
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 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...
In this play, the men and women characters are separated even from their first entrance onto the stage. To the intuitive reader (or playgoer), the gender differences are immediately apparent when the men walk confidently into the room and over to the heater while the women timidly creep only through the door and stand huddled together. This separation between genders becomes more apparent when the characters proceed in investigating the murder. The men focus on means while the women focus on motive: action vs. emotion. While the men...
"Trifles," a one-act play written by Susan Glaspell, is a cleverly written story about a murder and more importantly, it effectively describes the treatment of women during the early 1900s. In the opening scene, we learn a great deal of information about the people of the play and of their opinions. We know that there are five main characters, three men and two women. The weather outside is frighteningly cold, and yet the men enter the warm farmhouse first. The women stand together away from the men, which immediately puts the men against the women. Mrs. Hale?s and Mrs. Peters?s treatment from the men in the play is reflective of the beliefs of that time. These women, aware of the powerless slot that has been made for them, manage to use their power in a way that gives them an edge. This power enables them to succeed in protecting Minnie, the accused. "Trifles" not only tells a story, it shows the demeaning view the men have for the women, the women?s reaction to man?s prejudice, and the women?s defiance of their powerless position.