Women In Susan Glaspell's Trifles

810 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Women and the fight for equality

Alejandra Gomez
Professor Wheeler
Essay 2
27, October 2017 Women have struggled for equal rights since as early as the 1900’s. During this period, the roles of women were franchised as stay-at-home-wives and completed daily chores such as: cleaning, cooking, sewing and motherhood. In “Trifles”, Susan Glaspell uses dynamic characters and their interactions to show us the effects of a male dominant society and how it can be both physically and mentally damaging.
Though not present physically during the play, Glaspell displays how the town viewed Minnie Foster, before her marriage with John Wright, describing her as “like a bird herself”. The author states, “She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the singing in the choir” (Glaspell 245). This imagery of Minnie demonstrations to us
Glaspell exposed how this dominance can be physically and mentally damaging to the women by displaying the sexist interactions between males and females. According to the article “Representations of Rural Women in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles”, Raja Al-Khalili states “Susan Glaspell used domestic violence as a motif to arouse questions concerning motives that lead women, who are relegated to the house, to become physical aggressors.” (132) Glaspell uses hidden clues such as the men having important professions, and how these professions play a huge role in the hierarchy of male dominance. These specific professions were being the town’s sheriff and the court appointed attorney. Another example, in the beginning of the play, Glaspell uses great imagery to show us the men stand by the stove and the women by the door during a cold time. This essays demonstrates the changes the characters underwent and displays the physical and mental damage that Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Wright, and Mrs. Peters endured during this male central

Show More
Related

  • Power In Trifles

    2135 Words  | 5 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    1167 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the start of the play, all of the characters enter the abandoned farmhouse of John Wright, who was recently hanged by an unknown killer. The Sheriff and County Attorney start scanning the house for clues as to who killed Mr. Wright, but make a major error when they search the kitchen poorly, claiming that there is nothing there ?but kitchen things.? This illustrates the men?s incorrect belief that a kitchen is a place of trivial matters, a place where nothing of any importance may be found. Mrs. Peters then notices that Mrs. Wright?s fruit froze in the cold weather, and the men mock her and reveal their stereotype of females by saying ?women are used to worrying over trifles.? The men then venture to the upstairs of the house to look for clues, while the women remain downstairs in the kitchen where they discuss the frozen fruit and the Wrights. Mrs. Hale explains that Mrs. Wright, whose maiden name was Minnie Foster, used to be a lively woman who sang in the choir. She suggests that the reason Mrs. Wright stopped being cheerful and active because of her irritable husband.

    Read More

  • Character Analysis: Minnie Wright

    295 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Wrights home was a poor, lonely type of home. The trees that surround the house grew in a sad state. The road that led up to the farm was an unoccupied path. Minnie Wright is the woman who lives on these lonely grounds. She is friendless and mostly keeps to herself. There is no one for her to talk to, her husband died recently, thus, she lives out her life as an outcast. In hindsight, Mrs. Hale, a woman who knows Mrs. Wright, explains to her friend, “'But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs. Peters I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here I wish– I had.’ I [too] wish I had come over to see Minnie sometimes.’” Since no one takes the time out of their busy schedules to visit Mrs. Wright, Minnie feels unwanted.

    Read More

  • Repression of Women Exposed in Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    954 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Trifling Justice

    1534 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Everyday Roles and the Female Choice

    1225 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • To Kill A Mockingbird Essay: Minnie Foster

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    Minnie Foster was a happy, carefree young woman living without the burdens and constraints of marriage. While gathering items to bring to her in prison, Mrs. Hale describes to Mrs. Peters how Minnie used to be 30 years ago: “She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir” (1129). Later, Mrs. Hale expresses regret for not visiting Minnie more often, and mentions a white dress Minnie used to wear for the choir. This white dress may represent the innocence of Minnie’s earlier life, before she became the cold, lonely Minnie Wright, wife of John Wright. Any joy that Minnie Foster used to experience, she apparently no longer enjoyed as Minnie Wright. As Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters discuss the whereabouts of the canary, Mrs. Hale reminisces about Minnie Foster: “She used to sing real pretty herself”

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Trifles And A Jury Of Her Peers

    1764 Words  | 4 Pages

    Susan Glaspell, author of the play “Trifles”, and author of short story, “A Jury of Her Peers,” was born in 1876, and is a well-known feminist whose stories did not become popular till later in life. Men believe they are superior to women, and Susan Glaspell shows through her short stories how this belief has affected women throughout history. In this case, the women was driven to kill her husband because she was in desperate need of freedom. Susan Glaspell’s play “Trifles”, and short story, “A Jury of Her Peers,” compare and contrast changes between the two writing such as, plot change, character change, and theme change.

    Read More

  • Justice In Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    972 Words  | 2 Pages

    Through the crime committed by Minnie Wright, three women grow together and establish that justice for all is deeper than finding the culprit. Justice occurs in all things, in hiding the clues by Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, in the quiet dignity they both have by helping their friend, and by proving that women are capable of anything they are determined to accomplish.

    Read More

  • Symbolic Reasoning In 'Minnie Wright By Susan Glaspell'

    1560 Words  | 4 Pages

    This symbol is where the desolation that Mrs.Wright felt. The dead canary is the representation of the companionship and how weak Mrs. Wright acted on the scene when Mr. Peters showed up. According to Elke Brown, Mrs. Wright thought that “Wright was a harsh man, who like to have his quiet and disapproved of conversation and singing” causing him to break the bird 's nest. Not only that but he killed his owns wife spirit, turning a happy, Minnie Foster into a lonely, desperate Minnie Wright. It is a reality that Mrs. Wright was pushed away to be in isolation. The second symbol in the play was Mrs. Wright 's quilting. Mrs. Hale realized that the quilt was uneven, and that stitches started well and then ended all wrong. It was “the first clue about Minnie 's real state of mind lies in the fact that parts of the quilt have been sewn together haphazardly, which showed Minnie’s state of mind”, according to Mr. Brown. Her incompleteness leads to quilting. This technique of self is to distress, and that was the way Minnie felt. At the beginning of time, Minnie and her husband had everything flowing until it went down the drain and felt abandoned by Mr. Wright. When this happen, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters felt the same way as Minnie. They talk about how it was not bad at all for Minnie to act like she did and left everything with no anger as the sheriff would have thought. Minnie 's friends also realize that her fruit province broke

    Read More

  • Trifles Research Paper

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wright. Marriage was more dedication and real, than it is now. Getting a divorce in the 21st century is almost more normal than not, it is happening to more and more people sadly. This relates to the play Triffles because it is inferred in the play that she killed her husband when two women Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find a bird. The bird was Minnie’s friend, it resembled her as a person as described by Mrs. Hale, “She-come to think of it, she kind of like a bird herself-real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and-fluttery,” (Glaspell733,T). Minnie Wright and other women in marriages during this time were supposed to appear nice well-mannered women who were supposed to please to their husband. Minnie Wright and her relationship with her husband changed and when her husband harmed her bird, which was the last straw for Minnie Wright. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters two local friends of Minnie’s, find the bird during the investigation, and say]

    Read More

  • Gender Dynamics and Empowerment in Glaspell’s Trifles

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although these problems are still around, women are more powerful now than ever before. Glaspell’s short story intensifies the idea of women’s rights and proves that we are not alone. Standing up for what they believe in has become more relevant in today’s world. Glaspell’s short story Trifles stands to point out that women may do things differently but those things are still important, and that a united front is much better than standing alone. The world has come such a long way from where it started. Women began as the people who keep the household in check and the men held jobs and brought in the money. Now, society’s norms are down the drain, if somebody wants something they’ll go after it. The fight for equality has raged for years and it still is not

    Read More

  • Isolation In Minnie Wright's Isolation

    1368 Words  | 3 Pages

    Minnie Wright was isolated from almost everyone throughout the course of her marriage. The main time Minnie was isolated is during the day while her husband was working. “‘Not having children makes less work,’ mused Mrs. Hale, after a silence, ‘but it makes a quiet house-and Wright out to work all day’” (Glaspell 511). Being the only person ever inside of a house is very lonely, and it was rare for a woman to ever even leave the house. “Furthermore, [John] refuses to have a telephone; and, as we also learn, he has denied his wife access to even the minimal contacts that town life might afford women at that time, such as the church choir in which Minnie had sung before her marriage. Minnie Wright’s emotional and spiritual loneliness, the result of her isolation, is, in the final analysis, the reason for her murder of her husband” (Hedges 94).

    Read More

  • Gender Differences in Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Trifles

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

More about Women In Susan Glaspell's Trifles

Open Document