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themes analysis of the play trifles.
perspectives of the play trifles by susan glaspell.
themes analysis of the play trifles.
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Susan Glaspell's Battle Against Sexism with Feminist Drama
Susan Glaspell wrote in a time when women were supposed to be submissive to the men of the society, especially their husbands. She bucked the system and fought traditional gender roles with her plays, short stories and essays.
Susan Glaspell was born in 1882 in Davenport, Iowa. She led a rather uneventful childhood. She attended Drake University in Des Moines where she received her Ph.D. in Philosophy. Before becoming an author, she was a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News. She married her husband George Cook in 1913 and together they founded the experimental Provincetown Players, a theatre group managed by artists, created to present plays written by new artists (Hunter, Paul A80).
In 1931, Glaspell received the Pulitzer Prize for her play Alison’s House, a play about the life of Emily Dickinson. She is one of only two women to receive a Pulitzer. She is also well know for her play Trifles and its sister short story A Jury of Her Peers. In all Glaspell wrote fourteen plays, nine novels and over fifty short stories, articles and essays (Carpentier 92).
The play for which she is most recognized is Trifles. Trifles is a murder mystery that explores the oppression women felt during the twenties. The main characters are the middle-aged wives of the investigator, Mrs.Peters and the wife of the witness Mrs. Hale. We get a sense of the domination these women dealt with early in the story when the key witness was talking to the investigator about Mr. Wright, the dead husband, and a party phone he was interested in investing in. Mr. Wright’s comment about the party line was, “folks talk too much anyway and all he asked was peace and quiet”(Glaspell 1330). This begins to show the domination of his wife by keeping her silent and at home. This turns out to be the case, as later in the play we find out that because Mrs. Wright had no children, she had a bird to sing to her, and when she was single, she loved to sing. She sang so well and so much that Mrs. Hale compares her to a bird when she is telling Mrs. Peters about her. “Wright wouldn’t like the bird-a thing that sang. She used to sing.
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
Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." Plays by Susan Glaspell. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., 1920. Reprinted in Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia Eds. New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 1995.
... The empowerment of women is the major factor in the two pieces written by Susan Glaspell. The male detectives couldn’t figure out what may have happened, but when the women try to bring all the pieces together, they are thrown aside and not substantive. Glaspell shows how the women acted as if they were detectives, much more than the men by contributing to the fact that they solved the case, showing they were just as valuable as the men, and actually much more.
Throughout history, women have struggled with, and fought against oppression. They have been held back and weighed down by the sexist ideas of a male dominated society which has controlled cultural, economic and political ideas and structure. During the mid-1800’s to early 1900’s women became more vocal and rebuked sexism and the role that had been defined for them. Fighting with the powerful written word, women sought a voice, equality amongst men and an identity outside of their family. In many literary writings, especially by women, during the mid-1800’s to early 1900’s, we see symbols of oppression and the search for gender equality in society. Writing based on their own experiences, had it not been for the works of Susan Glaspell, Kate Chopin, and similar feminist authors of their time, we may not have seen a reform movement to improve gender roles in a culture in which women had been overshadowed by men.
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 the play, the reader knows that Susan Glaspell is feminist because the females in the story are the true detectives on solving the crime. The definition of feminist is the belief that women are and should be treated as potential intellectual equals and social equals to men. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter do not have first names in the play besides Minnie Foster (Mrs. Wrights) when they referred to her when she was a young child. Mrs. Hale; “Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men’s hands aren’t always as clean as they might be.” County attorney; “Ah, loyed to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs. Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too”. The men see the messy kitchen and believe that the women do not have the abilities to be prefect housewives. In the play the women are more worry about the small details whereas the men thought it was useless. Sheriff; “They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot
Susan Glaspell was an American playwright, novelist, journalist, and actress. She married in 1903 to a novelist, poet, and playwright George Cram Cook. In 1915 with other actors, writers, and artists they founded Provincetown Players a group that had six seasons in New York City between 1916-1923. She is known to have composed nine novels, fifteen plays, over fifty short stories, and one biography. She was a pioneering feminist writer and America’s first import and modern female playwright. She wrote the one act play “Trifles” for the Provincetown Players was later adapted into the short shorty “A Jury of Her Peers” in 1917. A comparison in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” changes the titles, unfinished worked, and
When she moved to Harlem in the 1920’s that is when her writing career began and flourished. (after graduating college)
The struggles for equal rights for women were evident in this play just as they are evident today. One of the most obvious examples is how the women were treated at the beginning of the play. They are left in the kitchen while the men go upstairs to look for evidence. The men viewed the kitchen as a room for women and a room where only women belong. The Sheriff proved that when he made the statement that there is nothing here but “kitchen things” (Glaspell 662). In saying this he gives the audience the impression that this room was a room of little importance and that nothing of any value exist in the kitchen. Women who attempt to balance two jobs, the job and being a mother and the job of working in the outside community are often viewed as not being as committed to their job that they work outside of the home. It is often necessary for a mother to leave work to take care of a sick child and when she does this she is frowned upon in the community of the working world. It gives her employer the impression that she is not committed to her job because outside distractions are interfering with production. Employers do not see that fact that she has contributed countless hours. They only see the time that she is away fro...
Throughout the early 1900’s, women were viewed by society as inferior to men. Those of the female sex were expected to cook, clean, and only speak when spoken to. Susan Glaspell criticizes these concepts in one of the earliest forms of feminist literature, “A Jury of Her Peers”. The story focuses on the murder of John Wright committed by his wife Minnie as the Hales and the Peters investigate the crime scene. Despite the women finding valuable evidence towards the crime, the discoveries came into the husbands’ views as petty trifles that only women worry about. While some argue that Glaspell’s novel explores the idea that women were overlooked by men in the post-WWI times, and others suggest the story is a criticism of marriage, Glaspell describes
The “Anthology of American Literature” observes that Susan Glaspell “insisted that the truth about women lives and struggles for identity, equality, and power be seen and heard” (1259). In the Play “Trifles”, the men make a very big mistake by assuming that women’s identity is solely derived from the relationship with the dominant gender, men. Prosecutor Henderson tells Mrs. Peters that, the fact that she is married to a law enforcement officer implies that she is married
As a strong feminist, Susan Glaspell wrote “Trifles” and then translated it to a story called “A Jury of Her Peers.” These works express Glaspell’s view of the way women were treated at the turn of the century. Even though Glaspell is an acclaimed feminist, her story does not contain the traditional feminist views of equal rights for both sexes.
In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles Mr. Wright’s murder is never solved because the two women in the story unite against of the arrogance of men to hide evidence that would prove Mrs. Wright as the murderer. The play Trifles is about the death of farmer Mr. Wright and how the town sheriff and attorney try to find evidence that his wife Mrs. Wright killed him. As the play progresses the men’s wives who had come along were discovering important pieces of evidence that prove the men’s theory but chose to hide from them to illustrate the point that their ideas should have been valued and not something to be trifled. The very irony of the play comes from its title trifles and is defined as something that isn’t very important or has no relevance to the situation that it is presented to. In this play the irony of the title comes from the fact that the men find the women’s opinions on the case trifling even though the women solve the crime which ends up being the downfall of the men as they would have been able to prosecute Mrs. Wright if they had listened which made the women’s opinions not trifling. Glaspell was born in an age where women were still considered the property of men and they had no real value in society in the eyes of men except for procreation and motherhood. This attitude towards women was what inspired Glaspell to write the play Trifles and to illustrate the point that women’s attitudes should be just as valued as men’s and to let women have a sense of fulfillment in life and break the shackles that were holding them only as obedient housewives. Trifles was also inspired by a real murder trial that Glaspell had been covering when she was a reporter in the year 1900. Glaspell is a major symbol of the feminist movement of l...
Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." Plays by Susan Glaspell. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., 1920. Reprinted in Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia Eds. New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 2004.
Wright was described as a beautiful women filled with such joy and life until she married John Wright. Mrs. Peter’s and Mrs. Hale feels sorry for her because her husband treated her so bad. Due to female bonding and sympathy, the two women, becoming detectives, finds the truth and hides it from the men. The play shows you that emotions can play a part in your judgement. Mrs. Peter’s and Mrs. Hale felt sorry that Mrs. Wright had one to keep her company no kids and she was always left alone at home. “yes good; he didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debt. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters just to pass the time of day with him. Like a raw wind that goes to the bone. I should of think she would have wanted a bird. But what you suppose went with it?” Later on in the play the women find out what happens to the bird. The bird was killed the same way Mrs. Wright husband which leads to the motive of why he was killed. Mrs. Wright was just like the bird beautiful but caged no freedom not being able to live a life of her own. Always stuck in the shadows of her husband being told what to do and