Stereotypes and Stereotyping in Susan Glaspell's Trifles

709 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Women's roles in literature

Stereotypes and Stereotyping in Susan Glaspell's Trifles In the play Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, the male characters make several assumptions concerning the female characters. These assumptions deal with the way in which the male characters see the female characters, on a purely stereotypical, gender-related level. The stereotypical assumptions made are those of the women being concerned only with trifling things, loyalty to the feminine gender, and of women being subservient to their spouses. The first assumption, women being only concerned with trifling things, is seen beginning with line 120 where the men say: Sheriff: Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin' about her preserves. County Attorney: I guess before we're through she may have something more serious than her preserves to worry about. Hale: Well, women are used to worrying over trifles. These lines show the attitude toward women prevalent throughout the play. It is the men's nonchalance toward the small details t... ... middle of paper ... ...imple things in life, things of little or no significance to the important, male world in which they live. It is here we find the men to be wrong, for it is in the small, seemingly insignificant details that the guilt of a woman is found and stifled. Work Cited 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.

Show More
Related

  • Character Analysis Of Alex Haley's Autobiography Of Malcolm X

    1520 Words  | 4 Pages

    Alex Haley’s, Autobiography of Malcolm X, continues to teach us of the prominent African American leader in the Nation of Islam. He starts off before Malcolm Little was even born, talking of his father and mother and how white members of the KKK drove his family out of their home and into Lansing, Michigan. In Lansing, their family was harassed once again by a white racist group, the Black Legion. Malcolm’s father died when he was six, and his mother was placed in a mental hospital seven years after this incident.

    Read More

  • The Deception of Trifles: Gender Roles in the Play by Glaspell

    1559 Words  | 4 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X

    633 Words  | 2 Pages

    Malcolm grew up in Lansing Michigan on a farm majority of his life. Malcolms life of crime started when he began stealing goods for his family. He felt the need to due to his family being so poor. Malcolm lived with his mother Mrs. Little, who was not so stable herself. She was bombarded by bills and tax collectors that eventually led her to go into depression and have extreme anxiety. She later became so bad that she was admitted to the mental Institute and Malcolm was now a child of the state. This was his first true resentment towards white authorities after he blamed them for the detention of Mrs. Little and being a child of the state.

    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

  • Trifles and A Dollhouse

    855 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the plays, the reader can visualize how men dismiss women as trivial and treat them like property, even though the lifestyles they are living in are very much in contrast. The playwrights, each in their own way, are addressing the issues that have negatively impacted the identity of women in society.

    Read More

  • The Autobiography Of Malcom X: The Autobiography Of Malcolm X

    1241 Words  | 3 Pages

    Malcolm’s negative view of white people began at a young age; he saw his childhood home burned down by the Ku Klux Klan. He vividly recalled the sound of the of the pistol shots

    Read More

  • The Theme of Justice in Susan Glaspell's 'Trifles'

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Malcolm X Thesis

    1235 Words  | 3 Pages

    I never wanted to wait for anything”. He even was trying to conform, even stating how he “was trying so hard, in every way, to be white” (pg. 33). The name Detroit Red is associated with a low point in his life. Malcolm was named Detroit Red as he came out of Michigan and he was light-skinned. During the period as Detroit Red he was hustler doing things such as stealing, gambling, drug dealing. He was essentially living a dangerous life. Looking bad at this lifestyle he chose that put him in jail he said: “I really was at least slightly out of my mind. I viewed narcotics as most people regard food” (pg. 141). With the name Malcolm X, he finally takes all his experience and new learnings from the Nation of Islam and applied it to the new chapter in his life. During his time in prison, Malcolm becomes informed about a new movement titled the Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam is one of the oldest Black nationalist movements that taught blacks about self-reliance and eventually going back to the motherland. Malcolm writes to Elijah Muhammad while in prison and starts working for him and renounces his reckless behavior. Malcolm works very hard so he can become the second man to the Nation of Islam. In the 1950s’ with the rise of the civil rights movement

    Read More

  • Biography Of Malcolm X

    884 Words  | 2 Pages

    Malcolm X is one of the prominent activist and outspoken public voices of the Black Muslim. He was born as Malcolm little and he changed his last name to X to signify his rejection of his “slave” name. Malcolm X is a charismatic and eloquent, Malcolm became an influential leader of the Nation of Islam, which combined Islam with Black Nationalism. After Malcolm X’s death in 1965, his bestselling book The Autobiography of Malcolm X popularized his ideas, particularly among black youth, and laid the foundation for the Black Power movement of the late 1960s and 1970s.

    Read More

  • Malcolm X

    1349 Words  | 3 Pages

    Malcolm X was born May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska by the name of Malcolm Little. His childhood was plagued with problems that stemmed from his father Earl's outspoken views on civil rights and his strong support of black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Constant death threats by the White Supremacist group known as the Black Legion (also known as members of the Ku Klux Klan forced the family to relocate twice before Malcolm's fourth birthday, but their efforts to keep themselves safe came up short when their house in Lansing, Michigan was set ablaze in 1929. Shortly after losing their house Earl Malcolm was found laid out and mutilated across the trolle...

    Read More

  • Gender Differences in Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this play, the men and women characters are separated even from their first entrance onto the stage. To the intuitive reader (or playgoer), the gender differences are immediately apparent when the men walk confidently into the room and over to the heater while the women timidly creep only through the door and stand huddled together. This separation between genders becomes more apparent when the characters proceed in investigating the murder. The men focus on means while the women focus on motive: action vs. emotion. While the men...

    Read More

  • Justice In Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    972 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the play Trifles, Susan Glaspell brings together three women through a crime investigation in the late nineteenth century. Glaspell uses symbolism, contrast of sexes, and well-constructed characters to show that justice for all is equally important to finding the truth. Perhaps the most prevalent literary device in the Trifles is the rich symbolism. Each of the women in the play are equally important, but come together to become more powerful. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters directly bond, while Mrs. Wright indirectly contributes from jail by leaving them small clues.

    Read More

  • Malcolm X

    609 Words  | 2 Pages

    Malcolm X was a well-known civil rights leader who served as a spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Malcolm was a very gifted inspirational speaker. Through his dedication and leadership during the 1950s and 60s he grew the Nation of Islam followers to over 400, 00 members. Malcolm X encouraged blacks not to become victim to racism by any means necessary. In the year of 1965 Malcolm X was assassinated in front of his wife and children while he was delivering a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan.

    Read More

  • The Importance of Female Characters in Susan Glaspell's 'Trifles'

    1228 Words  | 3 Pages

    This supports the idea that men see women and their respective actions as incompetent and trivial. Another way Glaspell demonstrates the assumption that men view women as insignificant is by conveying the men's attitude towards a woman's work.

    Read More

  • Trifles Title Analysis

    1511 Words  | 4 Pages

    Susan Glaspell’s Trifles (1916), is a play that accounts for imprisonment and loneliness of women in a patriarchal society. The plot has several instances where women issues are perceived to be mere trifles by their male counterparts. The title is of significant importance in supporting the main theme of the story and developing the plot that leads to the evidence of the mysterious murder. Trifles can be defined as things of less importance; in this story dramatic, verbal and situational irony is used to show how the insignificant trifles lead to a great deal of truth in a crime scene investigation. The title of the story “Trifles” is used ironically to shape the unexpected evidence discovered by women in

    Read More

More about Stereotypes and Stereotyping in Susan Glaspell's Trifles

Open Document