The Battle of the Sexes in Susan Glaspell's Trifles

1330 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Ancient greek womens roles in stories

The Battle of the Sexes in Susan Glaspell's Trifles

'Well, women are used to worrying over trifles,' (Glaspell 957) remarks crime scene eyewitness Mr. Hale in Susan Glaspell's short play Trifles. As this quotation blatantly demonstrates, literature has had a lengthy history of gender bias, both in terms of adequate representation of women as authors and as formidable, strong characters. In this reference to his and the sheriff's wives, Mr. Hale presents the argumentative conflict that will prove prevalent, if latent, throughout the course of this work. In the play, the male characters are regarded as intellectually superior to their wives, who are patronized as rather childish for their concern in domestic detail. In Trifles, Glaspell makes a feminist leap as she portrays her female characters with ample cunning to secretly and humbly triumph over male condescending.

The action of Glaspell's play is executed by a mere five players, three of whom are men - a fact which in itself demonstrates the establishment of women as a minority, even in such a small sampling. The county attorney, Sheriff Peters, Mrs. Peters, eyewitness Mr. Hale, and Mrs. Hale are drawn together in a dismal and atmospheric farmhouse to investigate the murder of Joe Wright, whose wife is the prime suspect. Even in the play's most rudimentary introduction, we are presented with a marked distinction between the men's and women's perspectives. The men immediately perceive the house as a crime scene and as such feel compelled to interview Mr. Hale about details of his visit and officiously search for smoking-gun evidence as to the killer?s motives. Conversely, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters comprehend the environment as something more inti...

... middle of paper ...

...e women remain silent, withholding information from their husbands for the sake of an unhappy mistreated woman whose loneliness and isolation are not terribly far-removed from their own.

In her article, Holstein refers to Trifles as a "deceptive play" (Holstein 282), and I believe that to be an excellent choice of description. Trifles only superficially masquerades as a murder mystery; Glaspell has, in actuality, crafted a battle of the sexes - a veritable war between men and women, so imperceptible and silent that not even the characters really know that it exists.

Works Cited:

Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles" The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Bedford/St.Martins: Boston 2005.

Holstein, Suzy Clarkson. "Silent Justice in a Different Key: Glaspell's Trifles." Midwest-Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought (MQ). 44.3 (2003 Spring): 282-90.

Show More
Related

  • Silent Justice in a Different Key: Suzy Clarkson Holstein´s Trifles

    615 Words  | 2 Pages

    I. Article Summary: Suzy Clarkson Holstein's article, “Silent Justice in a Different Key: Glaspell's 'Trifles'” evaluates the play Trifles and how the difference between the men in the play mirror how a woman's perspective is very different from a man's. Trifles is about two women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, who show up at a house with their husbands and the county attorney to investigate a murder. The entire time the men are looking for evidence to implicate the accused wife, Minnie Wright, of killing her husband. Meanwhile, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are there to gather up some items to bring Minnie Wright in jail. While doing so, the women uncover evidence that would prove the wife is culpable but decide to hide it from the men in the last moments of the play. Trifles is evaluated on how the women are able to come up with the evidence unlike the men because they didn't approach it like a crime scene but rather a home, “By contrast, the women arrive at a home. Although neither they or the men realize it, they too are conducting an investigation” (Holstein 283). Holstein also notes they are able to find evidence because they use their own life experiences to relate to the accused murderer, Minnie Wright as shown here; “But the women do not simply remember and sympathize with Minnie. They identify with her, quite literally” (285). Holstein finishes the article by noting the women decide to hide the evidence because of the solidarity they feel towards Minnie Wright; “From Mrs. Hale's perspective, people are linked together through fragile, sometimes imperceptible strands. The tiny trifles of life –a neighbor's visit, a bird's song, the sewing of a quilt –have profound reverberations” (287).

    Read More

  • Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    1167 Words  | 3 Pages

    Susan Glaspell's Trifles explores the classical male stereotype of women by declaring that women frequently worry about matters of little, or no importance. This stereotype makes the assumption that only males are concerned with important issues, issues that females would never discuss or confront. The characters spend the entirety of the play searching for clues to solve a murder case. Ironically, the female characters, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, uncover crucial evidence and solve the murder case, not the male characters. The men in the play, the Sheriff, County Attorney, and Hale, search the scene of the crime for evidence on their own, and mock the women's discussions. The women's interest in the quilt, broken bird cage door, and dead canary, all of which are assumed to be unimportant or trifling objects, is what consequentially leads to their solving of the crime. The women are able to discover who the killer is by paying attention to detail, and prove that the items which the men consider insignificant are important after all.

    Read More

  • Misogyny In Trifles

    569 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

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

    1559 Words  | 4 Pages

    and Trifles and 'A Jury of Her Peers,' by Susan Glaspell." Atlantis 24.1 (June 2002): 299-

    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

  • A Comparison of Feminism in Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers

    1103 Words  | 3 Pages

    Feminism in Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers As a strong feminist, Susan Glaspell wrote “Trifles” and then translated it into 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. The short story and the play written by Susan Glaspell are very much alike. The story takes place in an old country town in the early 1900’s.

    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

  • 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

  • Analysis of the Play Trifles

    1307 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Feminist in Susan Glaspell´s Play Trifles

    987 Words  | 2 Pages

    Trifles is one play that really shows the conflict between gender roles in the early 20th century. At the beginning of the 1900s the idea of everyone having equal rights didn’t exist. Men clearly dominated every aspect of life, while women were often left with little importance. The oppression of women during that time stretched to the point that they were not truly acknowledge as their own person. Their sole purpose was to take care of their families by keeping house and performing their caretaker duties. According to the essay “Literary Context in Plays: Susan Glaspell” by Bailey McDaniel claims that Glaspell’s work Trifles is considered an observation on the demeaning, insignificant characterization of women’s labor and their lives within domesticity (McDaniel). Susan Glaspell really tries to emphasize this feminist view throughout the entire play.

    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

  • Literary Analysis Of Setting In Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    1284 Words  | 3 Pages

    Trifles is based on a murder in 1916 that Susan Glaspell covered while she was a journalist with the Des Moines Daily News after she graduated from college. At the end of the nineteenth century, the world of literature saw a large increase of female writers. Judith Fetterley believed that there was an extremely diverse and intriguing body of prose literature used during the nineteenth century by American women. The main idea of this type of literature was women and their lives. The reason all of the literature written by women at this time seems so depressing is due to the fact that they had a tendency to incorporate ideas from their own lives into their works. Glaspell's Trifles lives up to this form of literature, especially since it is based on an actual murder she covered. This play is another look at the murder trial through a woman's point of view.

    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 equally important to finding the truth.

    Read More

  • Emotional Penetration

    1597 Words  | 4 Pages

    Susan Glaspell wrote two different forms of literature that have basically the same plot, setting and characters. This was during a period in which the legal system was unsympathetic to the social and domestic situation of the married woman. She first wrote the drama version “Trifles” in 1916 and then the prose fiction “A Jury of Her Peers” in 1917. The main difference was the way the prose fiction version was presented. Glaspell effects emotional change in the story with descriptive passages, settings and the title. The prose fiction version has a greater degree of emotional penetration than the drama version.

    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 The Battle of the Sexes in Susan Glaspell's Trifles

Open Document