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20th century women and their roles in society
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Womens roles in the 19th century
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Susan Glaspell was one of the first great American female playwrights. Her plays are often short, one or two acts, but they tell a story greater than just what appears on the page. Three of her plays, Trifles (1916), Women’s Honor (1918), and The Verge (1921), have feminist themes that show the consequences of the oppression of women, as is the case with many of her plays. All three plays were written during the first wave of feminism, during which there was a push for women to have jobs and opportunities and identities, ideas well represented in Glaspell’s plays. Glaspell’s plays show the struggle of being a woman during an era when women were trying to form their own identities. Through Glaspell’s use of feminist themes in Trifles, Women’s Honor, and The Verge, the social changes that women experienced in early twentieth century are explored as the women of her plays discover who they are and what they believe outside of what the patriarchy has determined.
Trifles centers around two women who are gathering belongings to bring back to Minnie Wright, who is in jail for murdering her husband. Their husbands look for evidence, not sure why Mrs. Wright murdered her husband, while Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale discover the true motive behind the murder. (Glaspell 36-45). A major theme of Trifles is the entrapment of women by men and the patriarchy. Mrs. Wright killed her husband because he killed the last piece of herself that she had left, her bird. Mrs. Hale can relate all too well to the oppression that Mrs. Wright was going through before she murdered her husband. As Mrs. Hale says, “We all go through the same things—it's all just a different kind of the same thing,” (Glaspell 44) supporting that all women can relate on their ent...
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...r themes of Glaspell’s plays are female identity and entrapment by men and the patriarchy and they ultimately show that the way women saw themselves were changing and because of this, women started changing their place in society.
Works Cited
Friedman, Sharon. "Feminism as Theme in Twentieth-century American Women's Drama." Journals.ku.edu. New York University, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." Plays by Susan Glaspell. Ed. C.W.E. Bigsby. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. 35-45. Print.
Glaspell, Susan. "The Verge." Plays by Susan Glaspell. Ed. C.W.E. Bigsby. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. 57-101. Print.
Glaspell, Susan. "Women's Honor." Plays. Boston: Small, Maynard &, 1920. 121-52. Print.
Shih, Yi-Cin. Place and Gender in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and Woman’s Honor. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Ntu.edu.tw. National Science Council. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
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
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
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
...stine. "On the Edge: The Plays of Susan Glaspell." Modern Drama 31.1 (Mar. 1988): 91-105. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Marie Lazzari. Vol. 55. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.
...mpletely dependent upon men. Playwright Susan Glaspell cleverly causes the reader to question the way that women and men are viewed in society. The women in Trifles, though they were overlooked by the men, solved this case while the men failed to do so when they were supposedly in charge. In failing to recognize the women’s ability to contribute to their work the men succeed in causing the women to unite, giving them the real power and knowledge to solve this mystery. All the while the women are moving a little closer together and moving forward toward their rights.
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.
McDaniel, L. Bailey. “Literary Contexts In Plays: Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles.” (2006): 1. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
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.
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.
One striking characteristic of the 20th century was the women's movement, which brought women to the forefront in a variety of societal arenas. As women won the right to vote, achieved reproductive freedom through birth control and legalized abortion, and gained access to education and employment, Western culture began to examine its long-held views about women. However, before the women’s movement of the 20th century, women’s roles were primarily of a domestic nature. Trifles by Susan Glaspell indicates that a man’s perspective is entirely different from a woman’s. The one-act play, Trifles, is a murder mystery which examines the lives of rural, middle-aged, married, women characters through gender relationships, power between the sexes, and
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...
During the 1900’s women were viewed as nothing more than house wives. They were expected to cook, clean, and take care of their children and husbands. The lack of respect women received during this time is extremely evident in “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell. In this play women are depicted as incapable, and these ladies are very much aware of this. Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife practically says throughout the play we cannot do this we are women, and she seems quite content with that; whereas Mrs. Hale is a little edgier, and converts Mrs. Peters to the “dark side.” This play is not only a great read, but a great example of the lack of knowledge men give to women, the unity of women, and the women’s rebelliousness to their insignificant status.
Susan Glaspell, from Davenport, Iowa is only the second woman to win a Pulitzer Prize [1]. Much of her writing is strongly feminist, mostly dealing with how society viewed women and the prevalence of male dominance. Possibly, the idea behind the play “Trifles” was based on a woman named Margaret Hosack from Iowa, who is thought to have killed her husband due to his abusive behavior. Susan Glaspell was influenced by this story when writing ‘Trifles’ because she worked at the Des Moines Newspaper at the time of the event and in
The strong women characters in Trifles allow for feminist discussion, but also question the classic gender roles present at any point in time. 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
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