Patriarchal Culture And Disillusionment Of Marriage In Trifles By Susan Glaspell

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Susan Glaspell provocative Play, "Trifles" offers a glimpse into the patriarchal culture and disillusionment of marriage as it acts as the catalyst for examination into personal identity, societal responsibility, and the irreverence that women faced in America at the turn of the 20th century. Based in 1916 this one act play includes elements of what the women 's suffrage movement was all about. Through nuances and subtlety in speech gender imbalances are revealed in the characters and give way to motive for murder. In line with the theme the writer had used before women are disregarded wholly and their thoughts counted as frivolous. Characters question themselves as to if they could justify a murder if there fellow woman was under duress. While the men …show more content…

Furthermore we see the women of the story looking into themselves discovering loyalty and sympathy for the murderess. The wife’s role in society in the early 1900’s was that to be seen and not heard. Many times they were disregarded and abused by their partners and they had no recourse but to endure abuse. This period in American is mostly labeled as women suffrage. In the writing you can pick up in the speech as to what women were expected to do and expected to think about with not much faith in them doing anything further. So much so they are disregard as safe and unable to disrupt the investigation that is ongoing. At one point the Hale the sheriff made reference to the Problems at which the women were worried. “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.” With a pretentious attitude the sheriff showed that what they did had little impact to

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