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How gender roles affect society
Trifles by susan glaspell critiques
How gender roles affect society
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As time goes by something’s change and others do not. Reading the book “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell explains a big part. During the early century the characteristics of a man and woman was different. A man had a part in life like working and wearing the pants in the marriage. Unlike the woman they had a bigger role which was cooking for the family, cleaning the house, and taking care of the children and husband. But that’s back in the olden days, now it doesn’t matter what who plays which part in the house hold. In the story I believe the characteristics the author tried to use is Gender Roles which is when a man and a woman is not getting treated the same. Also Expatiations for a man and a woman, and lastly Feminism.
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In one part of the story I believe the chief said it. He said something about one of the ladies working at the job because she’s the wife of someone big in charged. I though that was very rude to say to a lady who probable does a great job at what she does. That women have her own right she doesn’t share one with her husband but I guess in the story that’s what the see when a woman is working for a big company. Another book that shows this is “There eyes are watching god” The main character knew she wanted to do big things in her life. But back then it wasn’t like that she had her whole life plan out of her. She was sent to get marred at a young age to an old guy who owns a farm. As months goes by she hates it, the cleaning and the cooking for the old guy. It was all just something she never wanted or dreamed about. Then she became a little older and met a young guy. After that her life she dreamed of began. She had a voice and was able to do things a woman wasn’t suppose to do like fishing. In the book Trifles the ladies understood what its like to be a women and knew that finding something wouldn’t change anything. So instead of telling what they found they decided to stick with each other because they understood that jail is no place for a woman during that
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).
She was seduced at an early age and then fell in love with a preacher, but was overcome by an exciting younger man. She experienced every form of lust and desire as well as loss. Somehow though all the hardship she was able to come out on the other side a more complete woman and ironically did so without any of these
A lack of cultural awareness or the assumption by one cultural group that another is inferior often results in painful and personal and social encounters. Consider the characters in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles. During a short visit to the Wrights, Mr. Hale found Mrs. Wright behaving strangely, after purportedly finding her husband with a rope around the neck. The incident ultimately became the talk of the town. Some were accusing Mrs. Wright of murdering her husband. Mrs. Wright of course denied the allegation, arguing that she was asleep when someone broke into her home and murdered her husband. While the men were blinded by their relentless and often emotionless inquiry of the murder case, the women sympathized with Minnie, the wife of the
American culture has defined the ideal dynamic for a family for many generations as one with a single, or perhaps multitude of dominant male figures, a submissive role or roles usually filled by the women in the household, and of course, children, who are deemed more acceptable if they are “seen and not heard”. Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping deconstructs and twists around what has grown to be custom in American Literature, and challenges the reader to feel uncomfortable about missing or swapped gender roles within the story itself. In Housekeeping, Ruthie and her sister Lucille have been transferred through several relatives after their mother’s death, and find themselves aching for a “normalcy” that they have never experienced, one that
“Trifles” written by Susan Glaspell explores the oppressive nature of an enduring patriarchal hierarchy within farm life throughout the 1900’s coinciding with the extensive psychological damage solitude and isolation imposed on the soul of, Mrs. Wright.
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.
Young ladies back then had very basic education and their only job was to take care of their husband and children and hope that someday their daughters might follow in their mother 's footsteps and become the best house wife there could be. But things have changed and ladies young and old have learned to become more independent and confident in other aspects, whether it be in a relationship or just bringing food to the table, women can now hold their own ground now compared to before. Instead of having to please their husband in any way shape or form. “That’s the way men are,’ his wife said to us. She smoothed her comfortable lap.
During this time of industrialization and market revolution men started working more. They focused more on their careers and women took on major roles in the home revolving around the children.
Family structure was different for their generation as well. Divorce was not nearly as common, people stuck together through thick and thin. Men were mostly responsible for bringing home the money to support the family. Women didn’t need to work because one income was plenty for the family. Taxes were lower then and People the didn’t lust over material items as much as society does today. Women were the ones who stayed home with the children and nurtured the family that was their responsibility. Quality time with family seemed more important in their generation than most see it today.
In society, there has always been a gap between men and women. Women are generally expected to be homebodies, and seen as inferior to their husbands. The man is always correct, as he is more educated, and a woman must respect the man as they provide for the woman’s life. During the Victorian Era, women were very accommodating to fit the “house wife” stereotype. Women were to be a representation of love, purity and family; abandoning this stereotype would be seen as churlish living and a depredation of family status. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Henry Isben’s play A Doll's House depict women in the Victorian Era who were very much menial to their husbands. Nora Helmer, the protagonist in A Doll’s House and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” both prove that living in complete inferiority to others is unhealthy as one must live for them self. However, attempts to obtain such desired freedom during the Victorian Era only end in complications.
Over the years, the roles of women have drastically changed. They have been trapped, dominated, and enslaved by their marriage. Women have slowly evolved into individuals that have rights and can stand on their own. They myth that women are only meant to be housewives has been changed. However, this change did not happen overnight, it took years to happen. The patriarchal society ruled in every household in earlier times and I believe had a major effect on the wives of the families. “The Story of an Hour”, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and Trifles all show how women felt obligated to stay with their husbands despite the fact they were unhappy with them
Gender roles seem to be as old as time and have undergone constant, but sometime subtle, revisions throughout generations. Gender roles can be defined as the expectations for the behaviors, duties and attitudes of male and female members of a society, by that society. The story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is a great example of this. There are clear divisions between genders. The story takes place in the late nineteenth century where a rigid distinction between the domestic role of women and the active working role of men exists (“Sparknotes”). The protagonist and female antagonists of the story exemplify the women of their time; trapped in a submissive, controlled, and isolated domestic sphere, where they are treated as fragile and unstable children while the men dominate the public working sphere.
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
There are many reasons contributing to this, although the most prominent is the change in gender roles of females in the country. In the early 1900s, women are known to be the housekeeper, the one who takes care of the whole family and her office is usually in the kitchen at home. However, in today’s society, there has been a major shift in gender roles. Women are now actively participating in the labor force. They are even taking over jobs that are considered to belong to the men.
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