Kennedy And Trifles

In Trifles, Susan Glaspell debates the roles between men and women during a period where a debate was not widely conducted. Glaspell wrote Trifles in the early 1900s—a time when feminism was just getting started. In this play, Glaspell shows us her perspective on the roles of men and women and how she believes the situation would play out. Trifles seems like another murder mystery on the surface, but the play has a much more profound meaning behind it. Glaspell presents the idea that men and women analyze situations differently, and how these situations are resolved based on how we interpret them. Research shows that women’s brains “may be optimized for combining analytical and intuitive thinking.” On the other hand, male brains are predominately “optimized for motor skills and actions” (Lewis). In the play, this research shows true when the women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, analyze details rather than looking at the apparent, physical evidence, and they find out the motive of the murder. The men, on the other hand, look at broader evidence that does not lead to any substantial conclusion. When Glaspell was writing this play, she wanted the women to be the real instigators, the ones that would end up solving the mystery. While the men in the story laugh at the ‘trifles’ that women worry about, these details mean a great deal in Glaspell’s eyes. Glaspell presents the idea what men and women are different in the way they live their lives through detail.

Throughout the nation’s history, American’s have sought to put an end to discriminatory practices and bring equality toward minority groups. For example, Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech were directed at putting an end to mistreatment of African Americans. Likewise, Jane Adams and Susan B. Anthony used their authority as women’s rights activists to push for greater equality amongst the genders. While some may argue that women are lagging behind in the race to equal rights, others claim the opposing approach. In today’s society, women are achieving true equality due to a shift in the old stereotypes toward women, increasing opportunities for women to become educated, higher expectations for women in the workplace, and a stronger influence of women in government positions.

With the advancement of suffrage to equal pay, over the last century, women’s rights have progressed immensely. Through historic marches and demonstrations across the United States, women protested for their equal place in politics and social progress. Despite the fear-mongering components used in achieving these rights, women’s rights are still thoroughly debated within society today. Over the last century, incredible and unreachable goals have been fulfilled for women, such as the right to vote and a sense of equal state in the “Free World,” and can only improve in the years to come.

Women have been a vital key to the shaping and progression of our society. Throughout time, women’s roles and opportunities in the family, workplace, and society have greatly evolved. They started from being housewives that don’t have many rights, even in the household, to being valued citizens in our

Initially, in Trifles by Susan Glaspell there was a sense of mystery regarding who killed Mr. Wright in his bed while sleeping next to his wife. The detective, and the county attorney along with their wives and a witness arrived at the Wright’s residence to gather evidence in the case. The wives were along for the trip expected to wait for their husbands to do the detective work as they chat with one another. The men discounted the women’s abilities and say, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles”, (Glaspell, pp 775) which means that women worry about small unimportant things and make big deals out of them. However, the women begin to discover subtle clues as to what occurred in the home leading up to his death. Mrs. Hale is Mrs. Wright’s neighbor she

Gender inequality has engulfed the United States and placed copious varying roles onto the male and female sexes. According to Leila Aboulela, Minaret, “All through life there were distinctions - toilets for men, toilets for women; clothes for men, clothes for women - then, at the end, the graves are identical.” Discrimination places women into different roles and takes away numerous privileges. However in America today after more than a century of struggles by dedicated activists who fought to alter these ideals and gain further rights, the perception of women in society and their contributions to society have been greatly transformed.

A major part of our world today is women wanting a voice and to be treated just as equal as men. Women’s fighting for their rights has been going on since early as the 1900s and still currently in 2014. Although we have had made improvements the issue still arises everyday in the workplace, household, etc. Between different movements, powerful people standing up, or drastic matters being taken, women were fed up and for once were finally standing up for themselves. From wanting the right to vote, civil rights in the United States between same sex couples, and outside the household work, the list would just begin to grow and grow everyday as women became more powerful and began speaking up for not only themselves but everyone else who is effected

For years women have been associated with the discriminating roles society has placed on them. For decades now many women have been trying to change the gender gap in pay, being unable to vote, and maltreatment of several thousand a year. The causes of several women have helped them get to where they stand now in society.

Yet the only difference about a movement for gender equality is that it is not only a domestic threat, but a global one. This makes the task at hand much more daunting. It’s easy to write an essay about a book that expressed the injustices done unto women around the world. It’s easy to inspire a teacher with fancy words for a good grade. But to really spark a change, to really affect someone is not as easy.

In “A Jury of Her Peers,” Susan Glaspell uses the men’s belittlement and the women’s responses to show their differences. For example, when the men laugh about the women’s question of the quilt, Mrs. Hale responds with “our taking up our time with little things while we’re waiting for them to get the evidence. I don’t see as it’s anything to laugh about” (Glaspell 8). Seeing these differences bring the two women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, closer together. At one point in the story, “the two women moved a little closer together” in response when the men trivialize what trifles women go through (Glaspell 5). The women see things in the house that the men cannot due to the men never having to experience being in the place of a housewife. The men failed to see the little details that women could see. “Belittling the women, the condescending men exclude them from the legal investigation, doubting the women could recognize a forensic clue”, the men doing this causes their view of the crime to be incomplete, and they fail to recognize that the women were the men’s greatest investigators of this case (Kamir). Mr. Hale even completely ridicules the intelligence of the women altogether by saying “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” (Glaspell 6).

It’s this that informs the reader that not only do Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters understand why Mrs. Wright killed her husband, but also . The men don’t understand in the same way that the women do. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters act as one once they realize what they know versus what they’re husbands know. This shows the depth of women psychology, as they’re able to relate Mrs. Wright’s experiences to their own. The author includes this to get the readers to wonder the same things that the women are, and to introduce the idea that the women are smarter than the men say they are.

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.

Inequality happens all over the world in many different kinds of forms towards different kinds of people depending on one’s identity. People all over the world stand up against inequality in their own ways of fighting for what they believe is right. “A gender-equal society would be one where the word ‘gender’ does not exist: where everyone can be themselves” (Steinem). Gloria Steinem took a stand against patriarchy by taking part in the Women’s Action Alliance, National Women’s Political Caucus and creating the Ms. magazine, and these actions resulted in the manifestation of gender greater equality and changes the ways of how others views the diversity between genders.

In the short story, Susan Glaspell's (1916) "Trifles," tells a perplexing mystery in which a woman's husband was strangled to death while laying in bed next to her sleeping. There are points in the story which Mrs. Wright, whose being held in custody, seems to be stereotyped by the men. As the County Attorney, Sheriff, and Hale walk through the farmhouse investigating the scene, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale sit at a table observing Mrs. Wright's kitchen connecting dots themselves about what might have led to the murder of Mrs. Wright's husband. As the men come down the stairs, the County Attorney says, "No, Peters, it's all perfectly clear except the reason for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite

Throughout the play, it seems that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are trapped in the kitchen, while the men travel freely to search other parts of the house. For example, the County Attorney declared to solely investigate the upstairs of the house and the barn, while refusing to search the kitchen because they believe it would not point to any motive of the murder (Glaspell 1040). The men proceed upstairs and to the barn, but the women are glued to the kitchen as well as the readers. The readers observe everything that the women are doing, but have no clue what the men are doing elsewhere. This illustrates a sense of imprisonment and isolation that women are forced to deal and live with. In addition to the play’s fixed setting, Glaspell’s cunning utilization of the title brings up a broad criticism of feminist issues arising in and outside the home. For instance, McDaniel’s essay proves this point here: “The title of the play and its ironic underscoring of any "trivial" nature attributed to women's daily lives and their often labor-intensive-if-tedious work (Minnie Wright's sewing, cleaning, cooking, etc.) is considered an astute observation on the demeaning, insignificant characterization of women's labor and their lives within domesticity” (1). McDaniel proposes that