Gender Roles In The Play Trifles

Trifles, Susan Glaspell’s play written in 1916, reveal concerns of women living in a male dominated society. Glaspell communicates the role that women were expected to play in late 19th century society and the harm that can come of it to women, as well as men. The feminist agenda of Trifles was made obvious, in order to portray the lives of all women who live oppressed under male domination. John and Minnie Wright are two main characters who are never seen; however provide the incident for the play. In this play women are against men, Minnie against her husband, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters against their husband’s, as well as men in general.

In the play Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, the male characters make several assumptions concerning the female characters. These assumptions deal with the way in which the male characters see the female characters, on a purely stereotypical, gender-related level. The stereotypical assumptions made are those of the women being concerned only with trifling things, loyalty to the feminine gender, and of women being subservient to their spouses.

Susan Glaspell’s one-act play, Trifles, weaves a tale of an intriguing murder investigation to determine who did it. Mrs. Wright is suspected of strangling her husband to death. During the investigation the sheriff and squad of detectives are clueless and unable to find any evidence or motive to directly tie Mrs. Wright to the murder. They are baffled as to how he was strangled by a rope while they were supposedly asleep side by side. Glaspell artfully explores gender differences between men and women and the roles they each fulfill in society by focusing on their physicality, their methods of communication and vital to the plot of the play, their powers of observation. In simple terms, the play suggests that men tend to be assertive,

Susan Glaspell's play Trifles explores male-female relationships through the murder investigation of the character of Mr. Wright. It also talks about the stereotypes that women faced. The play takes place in Wright's country farmhouse as the men of the play, the county attorney, the sheriff, and Mr. Hale, search for evidence as to the identity and, most importantly, the motive of the murderer. The attorney, with the intensions of proving that Mrs. Wright choked the husband to death, was interviewing Mr. Hale on what he saw when he came in to the house. The women, on the other hand, were just there to get some clothing for the wife who was in jail for suspected murder of her husband. However, the clues which would lead them to the answer

The reactions in Trifles reveal to the reader how heavily defined gender roles were in the early twentieth century. The two genders quickly form separate bonds with one another in this play. The men of this time dominate every aspect of this story. They make sarcastic jokes at the women when they start to show concern about things that appeared out of the norm in Mrs. Wright’s house. The first thing they noticed is the broken can goods when the Sheriff says, “Well, you can beat the women! Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves” (Glaspell 1245). This tone of voice reveals how the men did not take the women seriously. They laugh at the women’s idea of trifles but as Phyllis writes, it is “their attentiveness to the "trifles" in her life, the kitchen things considered insignificant by the men, the two women piece together, like patches in a quilt, the

“Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is a play that is largely based on stereotypes. The most prevalent one is the inferiority of women over men, though the play also explores the differences between genders in general.

The men?s prejudice is blatant and although it was easy for Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters to pick up on it, they react to it in a variety of ways. Defensively, Mrs. Hale, replies rigidly to the County Attorney?s remark by stating that "there?s a great deal of work to be done on a farm," (958) offering an excuse for Minnie?s lapse in cleaning. Later, he brushes her off when she explains that John Wright was a grim man. To the County Attorney, the women are just there to collect personal items for Minnie, they are not going to give him any valuable insight into the murder. To their credit, the women do not force their thoughts or feelings on the men when biased statements are made in their direction. They hold back and discuss the remarks later after the men go upstairs. Mrs. Peters observes that "Mr. Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech and he?ll make fun of her sayin? she didn?t wake up" (960). The fact that she believes the men would laugh if they heard the two women discussing the dead canary reveals how sure she is that the men think of them as concerned with the

Glaspell develops the theme of gender roles by what Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters fret about at the crime scene. For instance, the first concern that Mrs. Peters voices revolves around Mrs. Wright’s fruit preserves and implies that the women are housekeepers. Both the Sheriff and Mr. Hale remark about how the women are “worryin’ about her preserves” and “worrying over trifles” (Glaspell 3). Later, when the men go upstairs to look for evidence, the women decide to bring Mrs. Wright’s apron, fruit, shawl, and quilt for her in prison. To further establish Mrs. Wright as a domesticated housewife, Mrs. Peters suggests that Mrs. Wright wants her apron “to make her feel more natural” (Glaspell 5). Because of what Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters discuss at the crime scene, Glaspell verifies that the women play the role of housekeeper and cook.

“Trifles” a play by Susan Glaspell, emphasizes the thought that women were kept in their homes and their contributions to the home and family went unappreciated and unnoticed. The play gives readers a view of how women were view and treated during the 1900’s. As a female analyzing the play, Mrs. Wright’s motive for killing Mr. Wright was quite clear. Susan Glaspell gives her readers a feminist approach, to demonstrate how Mrs. Wright’s murdering of her husband is justified.

The play Trifles is a world-famous production written by Susan Glaspell in 1916 during the women’s suffrage movement. The women’s suffrage movement was a point in U.S. history when rights for women, like voting and gender equality, were greatly stressed to be enforced. Glaspell’s involvement in the movement did not go unnoticed. Today Glaspell’s plays are famous worldwide for her feministic and socialistic views on legal reform, and involvement in the women’s suffrage movement. However, the play Trifles stands out amongst her others due to it being based on a true murder story she covered as a reporter. The play is about a man named Mr. Wright who is discovered by his neighbor, Mr. Hale, with rope around his neck murdered. Upon discovering Mr. wright, the county attorney and sheriff get involved, along with Mr. Hales wife, Mrs. Hale, and the sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peters. Throughout the investigation at the Wright residence, the women are not asked for help, and are looked down upon by the men. While the men seldom ask the women for their opinion on the murder, the case unfolds right in front of the two wives’ eyes. Like the women in the play, Glaspell was unable to play a significant role in the murder case she was involved in, and her observations over small and minor details she thought may be of importance went unnoticed by the men. Throughout the play, Trifles, Glaspell symbolizes the conflict of men versus women seen during this period through recognition, the

The play Trifles takes place in a rural area and centers around a woman, Mrs. Wright, who has been accused of killing her husband by strangling him. The act starts off in Mr. and Mrs. Wright’s home on a cold, winter morning the day after Mr. Wright’s body was discovered by the neighbor; the county attorney, the sheriff and his wife and the neighboring farmer and his wife are all inside the

A trifle is something that has little value or importance, and there are many seeming "trifles" in Susan Glaspell's one-act play "Trifles." The irony is that these "trifles" carry more weight and significance than first seems to be the case. Just as Glaspell's play ultimately reveals a sympathetic nature in Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, the evidence that the men investigators fail to observe, because they are blind to the things that have importance to a woman, reveals the identity of the murderer and are, therefore, not really "trifles," after all. Thus, the title of the play has a double-meaning: it refers, satirically, to the way "trifling" way some men perceive women, and it also acts as an ironic gesture to the fact that women are not as "trifling" as these men make them out to be. This paper will analyze setting, characters, plot, stage directions, symbolism, themes and genre to show how Glaspell's "Trifles" is an ironic indictment not of a murderess but rather of the men who push women to such acts.

The setting of the play which takes place in the early twentieth century has established the theme that women have been looking down by men. ‘Trifles’ that is used as the title of the play has further foreshadowed the theme of the play in which discrimination of women will happen in the play. During the investigation of Mr Wright’s death, the men that involved in finding out the murderer have despised