A Feminist Approach to Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles”
The approach being used for Susan Glaspell’s play is feminist criticism. Glaspell’s play was written in 1916. In the 1900s women were expected to stay home, clean, cook, and take care of the family. Men were the providers of the household, smarter, and in control. Today women are more independent. They are running businesses and taking on more masculine jobs such as, firefighters and police officers. Women are even working and raising families. In some households the wife works while the husband stays home. A woman can do a man’s job and maybe sometimes better.
Linda Napikoski explains, “Feminist criticism is the analysis that arises from the viewpoint of feminism, feminist theory and/or feminist politics. Feminist literary criticism suggest that women in literature were historically presented as objects seen from a male perspective. Feminist literary criticism actively supports including women’s knowledge in literature and valuing women’s experience. It has since intertwined with postmodernism and increasingly complex question of gender and social roles.”
“Trifles was based on true events. In 1900, a man named John Hossack was murdered with an ax while he slept. His wife, Margaret claims to have slept through the murder. The Jury did not believe her story and found her guilty of murder. Susan Glaspell, who was a journalist with Des Moines Daily News, covered the trial for her newspaper. Even though she did not have any criminal justice background, Glaspell acted like a true detective. She investigated the murder by visiting the farmhouse where Hossack and his wife Margaret lived. She also interviewed attorneys and studied testimonies. Glaspell became very impressed with the st...
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...what his life was like behind closed doors. He could have been abusive and angry towards his wife causing her to snap.
“She – come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself – real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and – fluttery. How – she – did – change” (1074). Mrs. Wright did change. She felt trapped in her marriage and she needed to escape. Her life was stolen from her. She strangled her husband and took his life. She probably felt that her life was already over and it wouldn’t matter if she were put in prison or not.
Women might see things in a different light than men. They want to please the man in their life, but at the same time they want to be respected and seen as a human beings with feelings. Women today are stronger and more in charge and they don’t allow for a man to come into their life and destroy what they have built for themselves.
Born in 1867, Susan Glaspell was raised in rural Davenport, Iowa during a time where young ladies were expected to marry and raise a family. Glaspell never conformed to this expectation; instead graduating from Duke University, becoming a reporter for Des Moines Daily News, and becoming a successful author and playwright. During her years as a reporter, she covered the story of Margaret Hossock, a farm wife in Iowa accused of murdering her husband. This would later serve as her inspiration for Trifles. Glaspell was a woman who bucked societal expectations but was not blind to the plight other women faced. (Ozieblo) Trifles shows how silencing a person’s soul can be just as dangerous as taking the song out of a caged canary; stealing
Trifles” is a play written in 1916 by Susan Glaspell. The play’s audience consists of young adults to those in their late 50’s. Mrs. Glaspell takes a serious matter of domestic violence and uses her platform as an author to raise awareness about the issue. In the play “Trifles” a neighbor went to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Wright only to find Mr. Wright dead in his bed. He had been strangled to death by a rope. The neighbor questioned Mrs. Wright about the matter and her response was odd and suspicious. Mrs. Wright was taken to jail while the home is being investigated for further evidence. Mrs. Glaspell’s play “Trifles” effectively achieves the goal in raising awareness on domestic violence by the evidence of the crime and through pathos.
Notably, one of the principal ideas presented in Glaspell’s work is the concept of gender roles, moreover, the notion of institutional misogyny present in 20th century America. These said ideas are fleshed out through the characters of the play. The play opens with the introduction of five characters: Sheriff Peters, Hale, County Attorney
The play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is type of murder mystery that takes place in the early 1900’s. The play begins when the sheriff Mr. Peters and county attorney Mr. Henderson come to attempt to piece together what had happen on the day that Mr. Wright was murder. While investigating the seen of the murder, they are accompanied by the Mr. Hale, Mrs. Hale and Mr. Peters. Mr. Hale had told that Mrs. Wright was acting strange when he found her in the kitchen. After taking information from Mr. Hale, the men leave the women in the kitchen and go upstairs at seen of the murder. The men don’t realize the plot of the murder took place in the kitchen.
Mrs. Hale describes her; "She -- come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself - real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and fluttery. How she did change"; and like a bird, Mrs. Wright even sang in a choir. But after she got married, everything stopped. She didn't sing anymore or attend social functions. Like a bird, her house became her cage.
Parrish writes in her essay that Glaspell wrote and produced many plays, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1931. It is interesting and meaningful to read drama because it finds yet another way for women to find and express their voices. Parrish states that Glaspell’s writing focused on women’s "desire for equality and acknowledgement in a "man’s world.
Feminist criticism is a literacy form of criticism that gives the perspective of writing through a feminist perspective. It is a political form of literature that analyzes the questions of how male and females relate to each other and the world, the repression of women and how women are portrayed in literature. From a feminist perspective
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...
Mr. Wright was a cruel, cold, and heartless man. He was also a very unsociable man. He abandoned his wife's contentment and paid very little attention to his wife's opinions. He even prevented her from singing. This is revealed about Mr. Wright during the conversations between Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters when they find the dead bird with a twisted neck in Mrs. Wright's sewing basket. Mrs. Hale points out, "She- come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself-real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and-fluttery. How-she-did-change" (Glaspell 1267). Mrs. Wright used to be a very high-s...
Feminists usually do not vary in the views that they have. The feminist wants equal rights for both sexes, and wants all women to be treated just like men. The short story and the play suggest something different. Within the story there are many instances that suggest that Susan Gla...
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 most memorable one-act play, Trifles (1916) was based on murder trial case that happened in the 1900’s. Glaspell worked as a reporter, where she appointed a report of a murder case. It was about a farmer, John Hossack who was killed while he was asleep in bed one night. His wife claimed that she was asleep next to him when the attack occurred. No one believed in her statement, she was arrested and was charged on first degree murder.
Peterson, Linda H. "What Is Feminist Criticism?" Wuthering Heights. Ed. Linda H. Peterson. Boston: Bedford Books, 1992. 330-337.
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
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