Women dating back to the 20th century have faced oppression, and inequality. Women have a secret bond amongst each other due to the fact they can relate with one another, as shown in the story “Trifles” by Susan Godspell. Susan Godspell tells a story about a woman who is accused of killing her husband. People from their town go to the house to find clues, but for some reason only the women were able to find out the truth. For many years women have had the expectation of being the perfect housewife. Making sure the house is clean,watching over the kids,and making sure there’s food on the table. The women in Trifles all know how this feels since the drama was written in 1916, when women were expected to take care of their husbands. So naturally, …show more content…
They attach no emotion to it. Men expect to be served by their wives and husbands; treat their wives like property.” (Karagöz 4). This is relevant to the story because it gives an idea of what lives Minnie, Mrs. Hale, and Mrs. Peters had and how they could all relate to each other. This is why the women in the story are the ones to find all the evidence that point to Minnie as the murderer, but surprisingly enough they don't speak up about their findings. “Glaspell structures the play in such a way that only the female characters are able to solve the mystery behind the death of Mr. Wright. She designs the clues that the characters collect, on purpose, in a way that it is very difficult for the male characters to notice the clues and interpret them in the right manner to solve the mystery behind the death of a male character” (Karagöz 8). Later on in the script, the ladies express their struggles, which makes them connect with Minnie even if she is not present. Before Minnie committed the crime of killing her husband, she faced abuse that led her into doing it. There is evidence in the drama that indicates Minnie was in an abusive …show more content…
Brushes her eyes, noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it. If I was you, I wouldn’t tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it ain’t. Tell her it’s all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She—she may never know whether it was broken or not.” (Glaspell 10). Mrs. Hale felt bad for not being there for Minnie. She knows that she couldve been saved sooner if she had just come to visit more; this guilt she has is what led her into protecting her now that she is under investigation, and explains her motive for not wanting to speak about the evidence she and Mrs. Peters found. Therefore, women stick together because they understand each other. Mrs. Peters felt awful she couldn't have helped Minnie and taken her away from the situation she was in, but she is going to make sure she is seen as innocent in front of the judge. The loneliness the ladies have felt, or all the responsibilities they uphold, is what brought them together. While in jail, all Minnie had asked for was for someone to look over her jam and to bring her apron. This is what consumes her mind which is why Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters feel empathy for her because they get
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
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
At the time of this story men had precedent over women. Minnie Foster was actually a victim even though the story suggests that she and only she was the one that could have committed the murder of her husband, John 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.
Minnie has every right to kill her husband. John Wright put her through enough misery and pain for a lifetime. This is her only way out. John Wright had secluded her from the world in many ways. He does not even let her have a little bird, “No Wright, wouldn’t like the bird, a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too” (277). They live far out in the country away from everyone and everything. He would not let her leave the hou...
In her landmark feminist play, "Trifles," Susan Glaspell offers a peek at the complicated political and social systems that both silenced and divided women during their struggle for equality with men. In this simple but highly symbolic tale, a farmer's wife, Minnie Wright, is accused of strangling her husband to death. The county attorney, the sheriff, a local farmer, the sheriff's wife and the farmer's wife visit Minnie's farm house. As the men "look for clues," the women survey Minnie's domestic environment. While the men scoff at the women's interest in what they call "trifles," the women discover Minnie's strangled bird to realize that Minnie's husband had killed the bird and Minnie had, in turn, killed him. They bond in acknowledgment that women "all go through the same things--it's all just different kind of the same thing" (1076). As their horror builds and the women unravel the murder, they agree to cooperate with one another, conspiring to protect Minnie against the men by hiding the incriminating "evidence."
In both of Glaspell’s pieces, the main character, Mrs. Wright, is accused of killing her husband. Minnie Wright was a farmer’s wife who didn’t have much contact with the outside world. The murder investigation took place inside her home. Three men are used to investigate the case and two women come with them. The women were no help to the men, but solved the case but also protected Mrs. Wright from any wrongdoing. The three men tried to find a motive, but the case remained unsolved. Susan Glaspell show’s in the two pieces how women are disregarded in investigative matters.
To begin, in both plays the men dismiss the women as trivial. In Trifles, when Mrs. Wright is being held in jail for the alleged murder of her husband, she worries about the cold weather and whether it will cause her fruit to freeze which will burst the jars. 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. Likewise, the reader can relate to this treatment in A Dollhouse, when Torvald complains to Nora about spending Christmas time the previous year making frivolous ornaments instead of devoting it to family. Torvald says, “It was the dullest three weeks that I ever spent!” (Ibsen 1207). He believes her role i...
Glaspell is showing how both men and women view households in a different perspective. All the men who were asked to go to Minnie to find evidence to convict her as they took their wives. The two ladies kept coming across clues of a disordered household that the men mocked as to be nothing. The women found an unfinished quilt with a weird pattern, and a strangled canary. They women insinuated that these small details were the motivations of Minnie murdering her husband. The women were sympathetic towards Minnie and talked about her husband being controlling. Glaspell had created a courtroom and women had become the jurors and decided that Minnie was not guilty for her actions. They judged on humanity and not legal aspects. The whole time they withheld the evidence they found from the men investigators because they are supposed representatives of the law in this story. Relating to the story since the men are the law or authorities, they presumably ignore or reject many elements of life or explanation; like unequal rights.
The role that Minnie Wright held before, when she was Minnie Foster , is explained throughout the thoughts of the female characters with
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
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) At one point Mrs. Hale mentions that the Wright home never seemed to be a cheerful place. ...
Immigrants and America For hundreds of years, immigrants have come from all over the world in hopes of pursuing the American Dream. Many things have changed with time, such as the idea of America and the American Dream. News, politics, and even wars have impacted the way Americans view immigrants. America and the American Dream have changed for the following reasons: immigrants have a higher life satisfaction than American-born citizens, immigrants help build the American economy, and Americans have positive views of immigrants. Immigrants who have traveled from other countries have a better success rate than those born in America.
Susan Glaspell’s Trifles explores the unequal relationship between men and women in the early 20th century. How do you think the power relationship between the two genders was reversed at the end of the play? In the 20th century females were just meant to be at home, taking care of the house, making sure everything ran smooth. Women weren’t allowed to vote. They couldn’t go out alone. A women’s place was behind her husband and making sure he looked good, in every aspect. Weather it was political or not. The way they weren’t supposed to dress was extremely different, they weren’t allowed to go out showing skin. At the start of the play we see how the detective states that the house isn’t as clean as it should be. The jars in the kitchen
1. The play unravels in a dreary setting of a ramshackle farmhouse. The “unwashed pans under the sink… loaf of bread outside the breadbox… dish towel on the table” (1386) elevate its mysterious theme. The dark atmosphere extends throughout the entire play. It is consistent with the obscurity of the plot, as the story finishes without a denouement.