Theme Of Sexism In Trifles

1138 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The Historical Role of Women in Society

Throughout history, women have been portrayed as inferior creatures to their male counterparts. Men have displayed their superiority privately in the midst of a marriage and then more publicly being recognized as the “head of the house” making women feel lesser than men. This discrimination based on the sex of a person has oppressed women from all areas of the world. The theme of gender and conflict is revealed in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles which ultimately produces sexism and injustices based on gender. The setting takes place at a farmhouse in the early twentieth century, and it is within this domain that a perfect environment for sexism is set up. At that moment, it was characteristic of normal folks to live on an independent farm. Usually, the farmers worked in the fields and the wives in the house among the chores and the youngsters. During this time, women …show more content…

The women from Trifles were ridiculed in the sense that the men regarded them as typical ladies, simply worrying about the little things and useless matters. The laws of that era handicapped the women because they were not taken seriously, and they were supposed to be submissive and go along with their husbands. They almost had to prove their innocence rather than someone proving their guilt which almost made them second-class citizens. With Trifles, the men already had preconceived ideas, and this caused them easily to overlook the things that the ladies picked up on because of their day-to-day lives. The men “[followed] a predetermined schedule of inquiry” while the women “put themselves into Minnie Wright’s place (Holstein 283). This just proves that a body should always pay attention to the little things, for sometimes the little things may make a huge impact on whatever the case may

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

  • A Jury Of Her Peers And Zora Neale Hurson's Sweat

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    Until the last hundred years or so in the United States, married women had to rely on their husbands for money, shelter, and food because they were not allowed to work. Though there were probably many men who believed their wives could “stand up to the challenge”, some men would not let their wives be independent, believing them to be of the “inferior” sex, which made them too incompetent to work “un-feminine” jobs. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, feminist writers began to vent their frustration at men’s condescension and sexist beliefs. Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” and Zora Neale Hurson’s “Sweat” both use dialogue to express how women are capable of and used to working hard, thinking originally, being independent

    Read More

  • Observations of Women in "Trifles"

    511 Words  | 2 Pages

    Whose side are you on? The men’s? Or the women’s? In “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell,

    Read More

  • Trifling Justice

    1534 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...mpletely dependent upon men. Playwright Susan Glaspell cleverly causes the reader to question the way that women and men are viewed in society. The women in Trifles, though they were overlooked by the men, solved this case while the men failed to do so when they were supposedly in charge. In failing to recognize the women’s ability to contribute to their work the men succeed in causing the women to unite, giving them the real power and knowledge to solve this mystery. All the while the women are moving a little closer together and moving forward toward their rights.

    Read More

  • Trifles and A Dollhouse

    855 Words  | 2 Pages

    After the women come across a shattered jar of canned fruit, they converse about Mrs. Wright’s concern about the matter. Mrs. Peters states, “She said the fire’d go out and her jars would break” (Glaspell 918). The women here identify with Mrs. Wright’s concern, because they understand the hard work that goes into canning as part of the demanding responsibilities women endure as housewives. The Sheriff’s reply is “Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves” (Glaspell 918). In other words, the men perceive the event as insignificant; they clearly see women as a subservient group whose concerns hold little importance.

    Read More

  • Comparing A Raisin In The Sun And Ibsen's A Doll House

    1255 Words  | 3 Pages

    Women and men are not equal. Never have been, and it is hard to believe that they ever will be. Sexism permeates the lives of women from the day they are born. Women are either trying to fit into the “Act Like a Lady” box, they are actively resisting the same box, or sometimes both. The experience of fitting in the box and resisting the box can be observed in two plays: Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” and Henrick Ibsen’s “A Doll House”. In Hansberry’s play, initially, Beneatha seems uncontrolled and independent, but by the end she is controlled and dependent; whereas, in Ibsen’s play Nora seems controlled and dependent at the beginning of the play, but by the end she is independent and free.

    Read More

  • Everyday Roles and the Female Choice

    1225 Words  | 3 Pages

    Trifles is an excellent example of gender stratification at the most basic level: everyday conversation and behaviour. Interactionists have observed common patterns which reoccur in everyday interaction between men and women. Like in Glaspell’s work, men have been shown to regularly change the topic of conversation and disregard a woman’s ideas. (Kumbamu) Throughout the play the County Attorney interrupts or considers the women’s concerns to be merely ‘trifles’ by wishing to ‘talk more of that…later.’(Glaspell 141) The women’s actions exemplify what are considered to be female behavioral roles. The women except and do not challenge the obvious male verbal dominance and instead prove to be adaptable to the circumstances and provide emotional support. (Kumbamu) Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are unwillingly put into a ‘lonesome’ environment they normally would have stayed away from. (Glaspell 143)

    Read More

  • A Doll's House and Trifles

    1060 Words  | 3 Pages

    The movement for female right is one of the important social issue and it is ongoing reaction against the traditional male definition of woman. In most civilizations there was very unequal treatment between women and men with the expectation being that women should simply stay in the house and let the men support them. A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, and Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, are two well-known plays that give rise to discussions over male-female relationships. In both stories, they illustrate the similar perspectives on how men repress women in their marriages; men consider that women should obey them and their respective on their wives is oppressed showing the problems in two marriages that described in two plays. Therefore, in this essay, I will compare two similar but contrast stories; A Doll's House and Trifles, focusing on how they describe the problems in marriage related to women as victims of suppressed right.

    Read More

  • Power In Trifles

    2135 Words  | 5 Pages

    One striking characteristic of the 20th century was the women's movement, which brought women to the forefront in a variety of societal arenas. As women won the right to vote, achieved reproductive freedom through birth control and legalized abortion, and gained access to education and employment, Western culture began to examine its long-held views about women. However, before the women’s movement of the 20th century, women’s roles were primarily of a domestic nature. Trifles by Susan Glaspell indicates that a man’s perspective is entirely different from a woman’s. The one-act play, Trifles, is a murder mystery which examines the lives of rural, middle-aged, married, women characters through gender relationships, power between the sexes, and

    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

  • Gender Criticism In Katherine Porter's The Grave

    1129 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the early 1900’s, around the time the story takes place; women were expected to be care takers of the home, to be clean, well dressed and mannered. All of these

    Read More

  • Justice In Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    972 Words  | 2 Pages

    The strong women characters in Trifles allow for feminist discussion, but also question the classic gender roles present at any point in time. Through the crime committed by Minnie Wright, three women grow together and establish that justice for all is deeper than finding the culprit. Justice occurs in all things, in hiding the clues by Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, in the quiet dignity they both have by helping their friend, and by proving that women are capable of anything they are determined to

    Read More

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

    1228 Words  | 3 Pages

    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,

    Read More

  • Trifles Title Analysis

    1511 Words  | 4 Pages

    However, they got the last chance to prove that their role is not trifles as presumed by the oppressive society. The effort of the two women to control their fate is evident when they decide to stay loyal to their sexes as a sign of rebellion towards their men who have been controlling their fate. Glaspell succeeds in discussing poignant issues of gender discrimination and oppression. Thus, the choice of the title “Trifles” is appropriate for this drama because the issues highlighted throughout the drama are the unimportant roles played by women in everyday life. The women that are trivialized and dismissed by the male-dominated society win over male prejudice, which disregards the dominant beliefs of gender

    Read More

More about Theme Of Sexism In Trifles

Open Document