Susan Glaspell's Trifles

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Recommended: 1920s American society

The oppression and discrimination of women during the early 20th century was present all through American society. Gender roles were prevalent within the household with women being expected to take care of the house and work in the kitchen as well as raise the children. However, not only did gender inequality occur within the social norms of society, but also within the legal system. Susan Glaspell addressed this issue through many of her works during this time in the early to mid-1900s, one of these works being her famous play Trifles. Within this play, Glaspell focuses on a pair of women who take on a burden of knowledge after uncovering motive to a murder. How they uncover this knowledge is not what makes this play unique, but also how they choose to act upon this knowledge. With this knowledge, the pair of women choose to defend the woman under investigation rather than …show more content…

The methods in which the men and women investigate as well as how the women respond to the moral dilemma they are put in exemplifies Susan Glaspell’s purpose of writing the play. She writes to bring to light issues within the justice system and the inequality that women face under the law and within society during this time in history. The two wives carry out their own means of justice for the investigation, acting as a sort of jury to the woman on trial for murder. The issues of oppression and discrimination by women under the law and within their own homes is what leads them to have a different opinion on justice. The early 20th century was a time of reform, particularly for the rights of women. The first wave of feminism was sweeping across the United States, dealing mostly with the issue of women’s suffrage. Susan Glaspell, while certainly

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    In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles a man has been murdered by his wife, but the men of the town who are in charge of investigating the crime are unable solve the murder mystery through logic and standard criminal procedures. Instead, two women (Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters) who visit the home are able to read a series of clues that the men cannot see because all of the clues are embedded in domestic items that are specific to women. The play at first it seems to be about mystery, but it abruptly grows into a feminist perspective. The play Trifles written by Susan Glaspell can be considered a revolutionary writing in it its advocacy of the feminist movement.

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    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...

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  • Portrayal of Women Characters in Susan Glaspell's 'Trifles'

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    Women have lived for generations being treated as nothing more than simple-minded creatures who were able to do little more than take care of their husbands and maintain a home, but that idea is dangerous. The years of abusing women by withholding their rights, belittling them, and keeping them in the home was sometimes detrimental to not only the female sex, but to the males sex as well. Susan Glaspell is the author of the short play “Trifle”, in which Mrs. Wright, the housewife of a local farmer, is being investigated for the murder of her husband. As a local county attorney, sheriff, and male neighbor scour the house for motive and proof that Mrs. Wright killed her husband, the men spend much of their time criticizing the housekeeping skills of Mrs. Wright and belittling every woman in the play for their simplicity. Their assumptions about the female sex, prevents them from seeing the crime scene for what it really was.

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  • Critical Analysis Of Trifles

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    At the time of when this play was written the women weren’t considered equal to the man. So a lot of men felt superior over the women causing them to be belittled. We can tell this from the setting of the play the men gather up near the fire to keep warm and the women are in the back shadowing the men. Also when they begin to talk about women and how they worry about little trifles. Showing that they feel that there is no importance in a women everyday task. So instead of them taking out time to search the whole they only search the parts of the house that was more male dominate which cause the detectives to do a partial investigation. The men are so blinded by their cold emotionless investigation prejudiced believing that nothing important can be found in areas in the house where the wife spent most of her time. Stated in the play in this line “I guess we’ll go upstairs first- and then out to the barn and around there. You’re convinced that there was nothing important here-nothing that would point to any motive? Nothing here but kitchen things.” (446) When the down stairs area where Mrs. Wright spent most of her time was where the answers to all their unanswered question was. Their mind is clouded to the point that they disregard the main important clues as just a women’s trifles. “well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worrying about her preserves.” (446). The men are so stuck on men being more dominant and the women being

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