In the one act play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell, there has been a murder in a remote home of Mr. Wright. The county’s attorney, sheriff, a neighbor and their wives come to investigate the murder. The men treat the women as spectators to the investigation and discount their conversation as women just being women, always worried about the small things. There is a clear cut gender difference in the way that Glaspell sets the female gender as being treated irrelevant, ignorant and as property.
Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are irrelevant to a thorough investigation seeing as they bring no experience to the table in the eyes of the men. The women are only here to gather things as “she was to take in some clothes for her” not to help with the investigation (Glaspell 1008). The men immediately leave the women to have their way about looking for the things Mrs. Wright needs. The Men felt as they had business to conduct and the women were not needed to do that. The men mock as they overhear the women’s conversation “they wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it” ignoring the women the men continue their investigation oblivious to the investigation the women are conducting (Glaspell 1010).
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The husband has no need to care of their wife’s wants. “I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John” Mrs. Wright becoming the property of John loses her power to be heard (Glaspell 1006). Glaspell gives us a view to what Mrs. Wright was prior to bearing the chains of marriage “she used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster” (Glaspell 1009). This shows a stark contrast to the women that is spoken of after marriage. This is to show that marriage for a woman is nothing more than a loss of one’s self. A woman becomes property of a man, to do with as they please. Only good for cooking, cleaning, tending to the needs of their husband and raising
The power of women is different than that of men. Women display a subtle and indirect kind of power, but can be resilient enough to impact the outside world. In Trifles, Susan Glaspell delivers the idea that gender and authority are chauvinistic issues that confirm male characters as the power holders, while the female characters are less significant and often weak. This insignificance and weakness indicated in the play by the fact that the women had the evidence to solve a murder, but the men just ignored the women as if they had no value to the case at all. This weakness and inability of the female to contest the man’s view are apparent. According to Ben-Zvi, “Women who kill evoke fear because they challenge societal constructs of femininity-passivity, restraint, and nurture; thus the rush to isolate and label the female offender, to cauterize the act” (141). This play presents women against men, Ms. Wright against her husband, the two women against their spouses and the other men. The male characters are logical, arrogant, and stupid while the women are sympathetic, loyal, and drawn to empathize with Mrs. Wright and forgive her crime. The play questions the extent to which one should maintain loyalty to others. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale try to withhold incriminating evidence against Mrs. Wright, and by challenging the reader to question whether
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
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.
In her landmark feminist play, "Trifles," Susan Glaspell offers a peek at the complicated political and social systems that both silenced and divided women during their struggle for equality with men. In this simple but highly symbolic tale, a farmer's wife, Minnie Wright, is accused of strangling her husband to death. The county attorney, the sheriff, a local farmer, the sheriff's wife and the farmer's wife visit Minnie's farm house. As the men "look for clues," the women survey Minnie's domestic environment. While the men scoff at the women's interest in what they call "trifles," the women discover Minnie's strangled bird to realize that Minnie's husband had killed the bird and Minnie had, in turn, killed him. They bond in acknowledgment that women "all go through the same things--it's all just different kind of the same thing" (1076). As their horror builds and the women unravel the murder, they agree to cooperate with one another, conspiring to protect Minnie against the men by hiding the incriminating "evidence."
“The treatment of women in ‘Trifles’”, a web site that analyzes the demeanor of women throughout the play, states “ The women are betrayed as if they are second class citizens with nothing more important to think about, except to take care of the medial household chores like cooking, cleaning, and sewing.
The evidence regarding to Mrs. Wright criminal misconduct was concealed in secrecy by the alliance of Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, for they were not realizing that hiding evidence would do more harm than good for Minnie wright’s behalf, because of their attitude of achieving an exclusive quality than there husband’s, to prove that they can do just as much as the men or more and neglecting in actually saving Mrs. Wright from custody Mael has proclaimed “Minnie’s trifles raise the consciousness of both women especially Mrs. Peters moving them from awareness to anger to action” (Mael 282). Mr. Hale and Mr. Peters overlooked on how to correctly handle the investigation, instead the men senselessly point out the inferiority of women, and insulting their capabilities to become as equal as the men. The outcome of the Investigation revealed to be a catastrophe, because the male officials presumed that Minnie Wright was the victim that committed the crime I n murdering her husband Mr. wright as they didn’t obtain any leads or information to know if she did it or not. The women immediately began collecting all of Mrs. Wrights belongs including the evidence that will get Mrs. Wright accused for the Murder. As the men’s insults on Mrs. Wright famine housekeeping capabilities made the unease causing them to devastate the crime
Susan Glaspell 's Trifles is a play about the effect of gender differences about perceptions of duty, law, and justice. Trifles was a production about feminist drama, which took place in the 1900’s written by a Susan Glaspell (1876-1948). Glaspell attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa where she then graduated with a pH. D. in philosophy. She became a journalist in the Des Moines Daily News where she reported the murder case of John Hossack. The story concluded a man murdered by his wife, whereas she was convicted but overturned on appeal. This was the inspiration for Glaspell to write the play Trifles. Glaspell later turned the play into a short story titled “A Jury of Her Peers”. Holstein writes Trifles is about a concept that is even more profound, and that is how we pursue the truth, how we come to interpret and
Throughout history, women have been portrayed as inferior creatures to their male counterparts. Men have displayed their superiority privately in the midst of a marriage and then more publicly being recognized as the “head of the house” making women feel lesser than men. This discrimination based on the sex of a person has oppressed women from all areas of the world. The theme of gender and conflict is revealed in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles which ultimately produces sexism and injustices based on gender.
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.
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...
In Trifles, the play takes place at an abandon house at a farm where John Wright and his wife, Minnie Wright lived. John was killed with a rope around his neck while his wife was asleep. The neighbor, county attorney and sheriff came to the crime scene for investigation. Along with them came their wives, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters; they were told to grab some belongings for Mrs. Wright that she may need while she’s in custody. Once they all entered the home the men dismissed the kitchen finding it as unimportant. The three men focused more on legal regulations of the law. The play was mostly revolved around the women, discovering the motive through “trifles” and other symbolic things that had significance to Minnie’s guilt. When Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters understood the reason behind the murdering they hid the evidence from their husbands, and kept quiet. Many readers would visualize this play as a feminist point of view due to women’s bonding in discovering Minnie’s oppressive life after marriage. However Glaspell, provokes two ethical paradigms that have different perspectives of justice. Glaspell uses symbolism to characterize women’s method in a subjective way, by empowering themselves through silence, memories of her and their own lives as well as having empathy about her sit...
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...
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.
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