Life in the early 19th century was different then how it is nowadays because woman are less restricted than how they used to be back then. For instance, back them a woman could only dream of becoming the president of the United States. In the next elections Hilary Clinton is running for president because she has the right. Women have come a long way, but one thing that is not going to change is women helping each other. No matter what women are going to help each other, even if they have to go against their husband’s word. In the play “Trifles” written by Susan Glaspell women do not have as much freedom as they do nowadays. The thematic importance of “Trifles” demonstrates, how throughout the play, males criticizes woman, their wives perspective …show more content…
The critics and things the males said about Mrs. Wright were offensive to Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. The wives argue about the things their husbands talk about, but talk about it with each other. For instance, Mrs. Hale mentions “I’d hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticizing” (748). The wives do not think that is okay for the males to search and move things around the kitchen, women are sensitive about their kitchen. They do not like when people are touching and searching without their permission because it is disrespectful to them. The wives were upset with their husbands for being rude in the Mrs. Wright house, but they did not express their opinions to their husbands. Another thing that the ladies dislike is the fact that Mrs. Wright was sent to jail. Mrs. Hale states “Locking her up into town and them coming out here and trying to get her own house to turn against her” (750). The ladies dislike it because they think that is unfair to Mrs. Wright. The males are searching the house to find evidence against Mrs. Wright. They think that Mrs. Wright killed Mr. Wright. The upsets the ladies because they men do not give her a chance to prove her innocence. The last, thematic importance of “Trifles” demonstrates throughout the play how the wives perspective clashes with their husbands are Mrs. Wright preserves. The males were not sympathetic about the fruits, but the woman understands how difficult is to take care of the preserves. For instance, Mrs. Hale states “It’s a shame about her fruit. I wonder if it’s all gone” (748). The males dismissed the preserves, but the women do not miss it because they know is time consuming to have them. They worry because if any of them happen to be in the same situation Mrs. Wright is, she would worry too. They understand what it takes to grow these preserves under the
The farmhouse in Trifles was accessed by several individuals between the time of the murder and law enforcement arriving. The sheriff even sent Frank over that morning to start a fire for warmth, instructing him “not to touch anything except the stove – and you know Frank.” The men in the play are only interested in observing the areas where John would have been within the home, deeming the kitchen as unimportant. If they had only taken a few moments to consider the mindset and life of Mrs. Wright they would have discovered all the information they sought. Minnie’s obligation once married was to provide John with children, the fact they were childless helps to show her “failure” in this role in the men’s eyes, yet the women see the detached relationship she shared with John and the profound silence of a home without little ones. Mrs. Hale discovers an unfinished quilt with some very erratic stitching where Mrs. Wright has left off and begins to remove the stitches, as if trying to undo what has already happened. When the quilting method of Mrs. Wright is discovered the women link her method with the knot used around John’s neck. Without ever seeing
Of all Shakespeare’s thirty-seven plays, perhaps the best known and loved is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Many people think that it is unforgettable because of its poetic language and style. But, while these are factors that mark the play as a classic, it remains timeless because it explores many of the issues that are still important to people today. These issues, including loyalty to family and country, protecting loved ones, and deception are still prevalent around the world, and are especially prominent in the United States government. Another play that addresses major issues that are still relevant to society, especially women, is Susan Glaspell’s Trifles. Because Glaspell’s play shows women that they are certainly just as capable as men of completing any task, it encourages women to take a stand against the supposed supremacy of their husbands. It also forces men to consider more seriously the opinions and concerns of women. While Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale in Trifles do this in a quiet manner, they still remain defiant against their husband’s beliefs that they are only competent enough to worry about “trifles” (Glaspell 1618). Therefore, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and Trifles explore many issues that are still relevant to society today by questioning, supporting, and criticizing some of them, especially loyalty, gender roles, protecting loved ones, and deception.
The Sheriff, Attorney, and neighbour Mr. Hale look for evidence while the women Mrs. Peters and Hale are left to their own devices in the kitchen. Condescendingly, the men mock the women’s concerns over Mrs. Wright’s stored preserves, its stated: “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.” (Hale, act 1) It’s inferred that women- who care only of trifles, something of little or no importance, must be trifles themselves. Ironically, these said trifles: the quilt, preserves, a little bird- which will be discussed later, are what solves this mystery. A major concern expressed by all the characters is motive; why would Mrs. Wright kill her husband? While discussing the marriage and disposition of the victim, its stated: “Yes--good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him. (Shivers.) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone.” (Mrs. Hale, act 1) Abuses, which have been hinted at all throughout the play are finally spoken of in these lines. Audiences find, that Mrs. Wright- “real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid” - would murder her
Whose side are you on? The men’s? Or the women’s? In “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell,
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...
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.
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.
In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, a small number of people are at the Wright house trying to figure out why and how Mr. Wright was murdered. Mrs. Wright is already the suspect, and all that is needed for the case is evidence for a motive. The jury needs something to show anger or sudden feeling so that they can convict her for murder. The men, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Peters, and Mr. Hale are there to find the evidence. The women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, are there to pick up a select few items for Mrs. Wright. While the men are going about business and looking for evidence to build a case against Mrs. Wright, the women are looking over what Mrs. Wright left behind and intuitively trying to understand what happened. They are also trying to fathom why Mrs. Wright would be compelled to perform such an act of violence. As the story goes on, it constructs each of the characters in slightly different means. Susan Glaspell presents Mr. Wright and Mrs. Hale as having contrasting and comparable characteristics. While Mrs. Hale and Mr. Wright differ in terms of emotions, they are similar in their cleanliness and are well respected by others.
The power of women is different than that of men. Women display a subtle and indirect kind of power, but can be resilient enough to impact the outside world. In Trifles, Susan Glaspell delivers the idea that gender and authority are chauvinistic issues that confirm male characters as the power holders, while the female characters are less significant and often weak. This insignificance and weakness indicated in the play by the fact that the women had the evidence to solve a murder, but the men just ignored the women as if they had no value to the case at all. This weakness and inability of the female to contest the man’s view are apparent. According to Ben-Zvi, “Women who kill evoke fear because they challenge societal constructs of femininity-passivity, restraint, and nurture; thus the rush to isolate and label the female offender, to cauterize the act” (141). This play presents women against men, Ms. Wright against her husband, the two women against their spouses and the other men. The male characters are logical, arrogant, and stupid while the women are sympathetic, loyal, and drawn to empathize with Mrs. Wright and forgive her crime. The play questions the extent to which one should maintain loyalty to others. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale try to withhold incriminating evidence against Mrs. Wright, and by challenging the reader to question whether
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...
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.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, and Mrs. Hale, the neighbor man’s wife, are able to relate in many ways to the loneliness and loss of self that Mrs. Wright felt while spending her days alone tending to her home and husband. The men in the play are so blinded by their sexist ideas about females, that they miss the evidence of a motive to convict Mrs. Wright of murder. The men, after hearing the women discuss how Mrs. Wright was worried about her jarred fruit freezing, make several comments regarding the fact that this is something trivial that a woman would worry about even while being held for the possibility of murder. Mr. Hale makes the comment, “-Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.” (pp. 945)
In Trifles by Susan Glaspell, the men ignore key signifiers that Mrs. Wright is guilty, yet the two women present are able to see these clues. The men shrug these off as mere “trifles, which sets up the story to be a social commentary because the women are able to solve the crime while the men are laughing at their observations. The men first comment on the women worrying over “trifles” when Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale discuss the preserves being ruined (747). The women understand that this is a relevant concern because it symbolizes disrupt in the household, as well as Mrs. Wright’s lack of concern for her husband’s death. This intimation brought upon by the women in the house edifies the fact that they solely understand the motives Mrs. Wright might have for killing her husband.
The title of this drama "Trifles" demonstrates how men have the assumption that women and their respective actions are seemingly unimportant. Trifles can be used in two forms in the English language. In verb form, trifle means to treat someone or something as unimportant or non-essential. The word trifle in noun form means something of little value or importance. Both definitions of this word yield an idea in this story that women are seen as trivial and are not worthy of respect by men. This idea is conveyed throughout the entire story by the belittling assumptions and attitude the men use toward the women. For example Hale says, " Well, women are used to worrying over trifles" (1003). Typically, a kitchen represents women's work and the idea of domesticity. In Glaspell's eyes, men tend to assume that nothing of importance occurs in the kitchen and this can be related to the idea that women are insignificant. As Glaspell writes,
Most of the actions take place in the kitchen setting which demonstrates the author’s deliberate move to show the important details about the wifely role. The women hold their conversation in the unkempt kitchen, a domestic sphere that reveals everything about the lives of women. While the men were busy searching for clues around the farmhouse, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale see some evidence in the trifle that Mrs. Wright had left in the kitchen. The women can deduce that the messy kitchen with dirty pans gives a signal of incomplete work. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter spend most of their time in the messy kitchen that significantly reveal Mrs. Wright’s state of confusion (Manuel 61). Mrs. Hale understands Mrs. Wright’s experiences of loneliness and desperation from the male-dominated circumstances. The female characters sympathize with her situation by acknowledging the forces in her life that made her take the roles including that of murdering her husband. The men overlook the evidence that the women can trace in the house, and their dialogue suggests lack of sympathy towards women as noted from their humiliation and sarcasm towards women. For example, the women can relate the death of the canary to the murder scene. The attorney shows how woman’s concerns are unimportant, instead of sympathizing with Mrs. Wright for what has befallen her, they portray their women