Sister Love The play entitled “Trifles,” by Susan Glaspell, begins as a murder mystery that turns into a drama as the story unfolds. The story is focused on the investigation of a murder that took place in a farm house. The investigators, who are all men, are in the farm house looking for forensic evidence to help them solve the murder. The wives of two of the investigators are there to retrieve personal items for the wife of the victim. Mrs. Wright, who is the wife of the victim, is in jail as the primary suspect of her husband’s murder. When the story begins, all the characters are in the kitchen engaging in small talk. One of the investigators is criticizing the state of the kitchen by complaining that it is dirty and unorganized. The women, who are also house wives, empathize with Mrs. Wright and defend her kitchen by reminding the investigator that house work on a farm is not easy. Throughout the story, the men consistently make stereotypical statements against the women and Mrs. Wright. This paper will analyze male dominance and the effect it had on the female characters. More specifically it will examine how the female characters were forced to develop an intimate bond and how they formed an unspoken form of communication to combat the patriarchy displayed by the male characters. When the play opens all the characters are in the kitchen of the farm house. The men are discussing a strategy on how to go about gathering evidence, while the women are silently standing together near the door. As the men are speaking, the attorney (one of the investigators) opens a cupboard door and one of the women notices that Mrs. Wright’s fruit has frozen due to the cold. The men immediately ridicule the women for worrying ab... ... middle of paper ... ...tual and silent understanding. Works Cited Franzwa, Gregg and Lockhart, Charles. “The Social Origins and Maintenance of Gender: Communication Styles, Personality Types and Grid-Group Theory.” Sociological Perspectives 41.1 (1998): 185-208. JSTOR. Web. 21 April 2014. Hunt, Lester H. “Sentiment and Sympathy.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 62.4 (2004): 339-354. JSTOR. Web. 25 April 2014. Manju. "From suppression to self-realisation: a study of Shashi Deshpande's That Long Silence." Language In India Mar. 2014: 233+. Academic OneFile. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. Nadesan, Majia Holmer. "Gender and Temporality in Interpersonal Systems." Symbolic Interaction 20.1 (1997): 21-43. JSTOR. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. Pollock, Linda A. “Childbearing and female bonding in early modern England.” Social History 22.3 (1997): 286-306. JSTOR. Web. 21 April 2014.
If your husband had just been murdered, would your first concern be of your jar of preserves bursting? The short story “ A Jury of Her Peers” and play “Trifles” share an abudance of similarities. The setting in both takes place during winter in Dickson County, Nebraska. This is a rutal town located in the farm belt of the United States in the early part of the 1900’s. Glaspell craftfully uses the discussions between the characters and symbolism in both stories to bring focus to and reject how males viewed and treated females in rural America in the 1900’s.
To begin, in both plays the men dismiss the women as trivial. In Trifles, when Mrs. Wright is being held in jail for the alleged murder of her husband, she worries about the cold weather and whether it will cause her fruit to freeze which will burst the jars. After the women come across a shattered jar of canned fruit, they converse about Mrs. Wright’s concern about the matter. Mrs. Peters states, “She said the fire’d go out and her jars would break” (Glaspell 918). The women here identify with Mrs. Wright’s concern, because they understand the hard work that goes into canning as part of the demanding responsibilities women endure as housewives. The Sheriff’s reply is “Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves” (Glaspell 918). In other words, the men perceive the event as insignificant; they clearly see women as a subservient group whose concerns hold little importance. Likewise, the reader can relate to this treatment in A Dollhouse, when Torvald complains to Nora about spending Christmas time the previous year making frivolous ornaments instead of devoting it to family. Torvald says, “It was the dullest three weeks that I ever spent!” (Ibsen 1207). He believes her role i...
These lines show the attitude toward women prevalent throughout the play. It is the men's nonchalance toward the small details t...
Looking further into the context of “Trifles,” it was clear that the setting took place in winter at a time when modern comforts were not available. My knowledge of certain historical facts, regarding the image of women, led me to believe that the play was written before women had a voice, possibly in the early 1900’s. Even though there are small communities that still exist that carry the belief that women are subordinate to men, I didn’t feel this was the case. The mention of using a fire to heat the house, the party telephone, and the way the investigation was carried out were clues that this play took place in the distant past.
Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, was written in 1916, reflects the author’s concern with stereotypical concepts of gender and sex roles of that time period. As the title of the play implies, the concerns of women are often considered to be nothing more than unimportant issues that have little or no value to the true work of society, which is being performed by men. The men who are in charge of investigating the crime are unable to solve the mystery through their supposed superior knowledge. Instead, two women are able decipher evidence that the men overlook because all of the clues are entrenched in household items that are familiar mainly to women during this era. Glaspell expertly uses gender characterization, setting, a great deal of symbolism and both dramatic and verbal irony, to expose social divisions created by strict gender roles, specifically, that women were limited to the household and that their contributions went disregarded and underappreciated.
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.
I. Article Summary: Suzy Clarkson Holstein's article, “Silent Justice in a Different Key: Glaspell's 'Trifles'” evaluates the play Trifles and how the difference between the men in the play mirror how a woman's perspective is very different from a man's. Trifles is about two women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, who show up at a house with their husbands and the county attorney to investigate a murder. The entire time the men are looking for evidence to implicate the accused wife, Minnie Wright, of killing her husband. Meanwhile, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are there to gather up some items to bring Minnie Wright in jail. While doing so, the women uncover evidence that would prove the wife is culpable but decide to hide it from the men in the last moments of the play. Trifles is evaluated on how the women are able to come up with the evidence unlike the men because they didn't approach it like a crime scene but rather a home, “By contrast, the women arrive at a home. Although neither they or the men realize it, they too are conducting an investigation” (Holstein 283). Holstein also notes they are able to find evidence because they use their own life experiences to relate to the accused murderer, Minnie Wright as shown here; “But the women do not simply remember and sympathize with Minnie. They identify with her, quite literally” (285). Holstein finishes the article by noting the women decide to hide the evidence because of the solidarity they feel towards Minnie Wright; “From Mrs. Hale's perspective, people are linked together through fragile, sometimes imperceptible strands. The tiny trifles of life –a neighbor's visit, a bird's song, the sewing of a quilt –have profound reverberations” (287).
Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, seems to describe the ultimate women’s suffrage story. No longer will men have an upper hand against women after reading this story. Cleverness will be the key to retaining power from the men in this story. The one thing that woman are criticized for, the idea that women tend to look at the ‘little picture’ instead of the ‘whole picture’, will be there path to victory. Two stories of revenge are told in this story, the revenge of suppression and revenge of being portrayed as ‘unsophisticated, unintelligent’ women. First we have the story of Mrs. Wright and the struggles with her husband, John. Married women throughout history have been portrayed and played the role as being inferior to the husband in marriage. This seems to be the case with Mrs. Wright. Even though John’s public image was somewhat respectable, it was obvious that behind close doors the story was different. There is evidence of abuse in this marriage. First, the discovery of the broken door leads me to conclude that John was very physical and anguished. Second, it is assumed that Mrs. Wrights husband had broke her canary’s neck. The canary, which of course had to be caged, was represented as the old Minnie Foster herself. The canary is a beautiful, free spirited bird that had a sweet voice, as Minnie had at one time. This was the end of the line and ‘Minnie Foster’ was about to be reborn. She would stand up for all those abused and suppressed house wives across the world and makes the first ‘final’ decision she had ever been allowed to make. The bird’s cage was her jail. The bird’s death was her freedom for the fate of the bird was the fate of her husband. John was discovered with a rope tied around his neck, the freedom of a women who could no longer be held down. This was the first implementation of women’s power in the story. The women at Mrs. Wright’s home played an important role in the story as well. The ‘professional’ detectives were busy about the house finding clues to indict Mrs. Wright in the murder case. They ridiculed the women in the house by ‘putting them in their place’ as typical ladies, so worried about small things and useless ordeals. Mrs. Hale noted the stitches in the quilt to be erratically stitched as if something were wrong.
The main idea showed in Trifles, the male character, and the empathy described by the females is why the author shows everyone that in every section of this play. Throughout the play, the women were being ignore and belittled by men. With their role, it is showing how back in the early 1900’s men were figured as gods. Women had to give all attention to the children, housekeeping and especially taking care of their spouse. Even though the women think very different as to what men use to think, they still maintain a close relationship in respecting the man 's job. According to Elke Brown, “ As a sheriff 's wife, she is married not only to Mr. Peters, the person but also to his profession”. The women are giving their world just so the men can be satisfied with the job they have and not cause any other problem other than their job. During the play, the men are only looking for hard concrete clues. They seem not to see the reality behind minor things. Mrs. Peters is directed by this belief until she remembers the stillness in her house after a child had died. This memory produces a dominant bond between her and Minnie 's experience of isolation and loneliness. The scene where exactly Mrs. Peters herself attempts to hide the box with the dead canary in it. She is well aware that this action that happens, which can apply to on the society and the way her husband wants the things done. Just because her husband stands
In today’s society, many women are powerful, independent, and for the most part treated equal to men, but before the 1920's women were restrained by the men. Imagine what being a woman in this era would be like. In Susan Glaspell’s play “Trifles,” she addresses the life of women in the 1900’s by examining the marital relationships among the characters, specifically between Mrs. Wright and Mr. Wright, the Sheriff and Mrs. Peters, and last Mr. Hale and Mrs. Hale. Glaspell accomplishes this by separating the husbands and wives into different rooms in the home of the Wrights, leaving the women all together in the living room and kitchen, which is where they find the crime scene evidence. The point being is that the men did not consider what the
The plays Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, and Giving Up the Ghost, by Cherrie Moraga, focus on women's interaction in various contexts. Despite the seventy-eight years between their performance dates and the drastic difference in settings and narrative content, the main female characters are comparable, as Mrs. Hale, in Trifles, points out, "We all go through the same things -- it's just a different kind of the same thing" (Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, 1359). These plays show the varying degrees of closeness women can have in female relationships, and the role circumstances play.
I enjoyed this reading this play because the men in the play were typical men-folk. They put on this persona that they are the most important creatures on Earth. They act as if they were Sherlock Holmes himself when in actuality they are not nearly as vigilant as the female characters. Their high-mighty attitude made the women feel inferior and because of that common feeling they form a bond between the three of them. Through this bond they decided to keep the evidence they found and Mrs. Wright’s secret to themselves. Taking the box with the dead bird was them demonstrating gender loyalty and an act of rebelliousness against a the self-righteous male-dominate...
The men in the play are blinded by their expectations and stereotypes of women, and this leads them to dismiss and ignore the clues that would help them solve a murder. The two law-abiding, decent women in the play end up concealing evidence because they empathize with a woman who is abused and ignored by a male-dominated society. This entertaining and enlightening one-act play is full of symbolism that leaves the reader wondering, “What is the real crime in this
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...
Most of the actions take place in the kitchen setting which demonstrates the author’s deliberate move to show the important details about the wifely role. The women hold their conversation in the unkempt kitchen, a domestic sphere that reveals everything about the lives of women. While the men were busy searching for clues around the farmhouse, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale see some evidence in the trifle that Mrs. Wright had left in the kitchen. The women can deduce that the messy kitchen with dirty pans gives a signal of incomplete work. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter spend most of their time in the messy kitchen that significantly reveal Mrs. Wright’s state of confusion (Manuel 61). Mrs. Hale understands Mrs. Wright’s experiences of loneliness and desperation from the male-dominated circumstances. The female characters sympathize with her situation by acknowledging the forces in her life that made her take the roles including that of murdering her husband. The men overlook the evidence that the women can trace in the house, and their dialogue suggests lack of sympathy towards women as noted from their humiliation and sarcasm towards women. For example, the women can relate the death of the canary to the murder scene. The attorney shows how woman’s concerns are unimportant, instead of sympathizing with Mrs. Wright for what has befallen her, they portray their women