Sexism In The Play Trifles By Susan Glaspell

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

In the 19th Century, women had different roles and treated differently compared to today’s women in American society. In the past, men expected women to carry out the duties of a homemaker, which consisted of cleaning and cooking. In earlier years, men did not allow women to have opinions or carry on a job outside of the household. As today’s societies, women leave the house to carry on jobs that allow them to speak their minds and carry on roles that men carried out in earlier years. In the 19th Century, men stereotyped women to be insignificant, not think with their minds about issues outside of the kitchen or home. In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, the writer portrays how women in earlier years have no rights and men

In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles, written in 1916, two female characters are left in the kitchen of a house where a murder has been committed, while the menfolk search around for clues. The men largely ignore the women and are mocking of them and their petty concerns on the occasions that they do speak to them. While the men are about looking for the “cold hard facts” of the murder, the women are in the kitchen bothering with “trifles” that display all of the details about the wife’s life and, most probably, her motivation for the murder. In this play, Susan Glaspell has written male characters that clearly display the “Ethics of Justice”, a sort of right is right and wrong is wrong view; while the women clearly embody the “Ethics of Care”, a view that takes relationships and feelings into account when judging the morality of actions.

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.

"Trifles," a one-act play written by Susan Glaspell, is a cleverly written story about a murder and more importantly, it effectively describes the treatment of women during the early 1900s. In the opening scene, we learn a great deal of information about the people of the play and of their opinions. We know that there are five main characters, three men and two women. The weather outside is frighteningly cold, and yet the men enter the warm farmhouse first. The women stand together away from the men, which immediately puts the men against the women. Mrs. Hale?s and Mrs. Peters?s treatment from the men in the play is reflective of the beliefs of that time. These women, aware of

“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.

Up until the 1940’s women were pretty much property to their fathers and husbands. They cleaned and did most of all the housework, while men went out and worked. In the early years of the 1900s women were not allowed to own property in their own name; the woman’s property that she did own became her husband’s when married. Women who protested in the Progressive Movement were reported as being neurotic, wanting to intimidate men, be hysterical and homosexual. In only four states were women allowed to vote, most urban areas were less tolerable of this issue (“Progressive”). Trifles is an accurate example of the treatment women had in the American home. Mrs. Wright was basically a prisoner in her own home. The women noticed things such as broken jars, the unclean towel, and for some reason, a dead canary stuffed into the quilting basket, which shown that she was unhappy with her new life. Mrs. Wright used to love to sing, but her husband made her quit. While the men belittled the women’s investigations around the Wright home, the women pretty much solved the crime. They did keep Mrs. Wright out of trouble by not telling the men about their new discoveries. That goes to show that women tend to pay more attention to the finer details while it may go unnoticed by an uncaring eye

Crying over spilled milk is silly, right? Worrying about the little, mundane things is pointless and a waste of time. In Susan Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles, she demonstrates how being sensitive to the subtle details can be vital to solving a mystery. Throughout the one-act play, Glaspell highlights the theme of gender roles through the women’s worries, irony, and symbolism.

In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles a man has been murdered by his wife, but the men of the town who are in charge of investigating the crime are unable solve the murder mystery through logic and standard criminal procedures. Instead, two women (Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters) who visit the home are able to read a series of clues that the men cannot see because all of the clues are embedded in domestic items that are specific to women. The play at first it seems to be about mystery, but it abruptly grows into a feminist perspective. The play Trifles written by Susan Glaspell can be considered a revolutionary writing in it its advocacy of the feminist movement.

The feminist theory is always adapting to new cultural and always changing. What stems from the feminism theory is feminist literary criticism “feminist criticism examines the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforces or undermines the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (Critical Theory Today, 4 Feminist Criticism, pg. 79 Tyson, Louis). This theory shows us how patriarchal our society is and that’s how Susan Glaspell’s shows her work in her life time where women only had a few roles. They were to have house chores done, cook, and reproduce. Women in the early twentieth century felt it is time to stand up against patriarchal oppressions and which is why Glaspell’s work critiques the society we live in for restricting women. One of her most famous dramas, “Trifles”, Glaspell showed the females capability to stand up for one another. Gender issues play a role in everyday society, oppressing women economically, politically, socially, and psychologically. Glaspell tries to even explain through the title the feminism analyst as you read through her drama.

When reading the play Trifles which was written in 1916, by Susan Glaspell, I found that the play is about the murder of John Wright by his wife Minnie Wright. There were two different perspectives of how three male characters, Sheriff Henry Peters, County Attorney George Henderson and a neighbor, Lewis Hale, investigate the crime versus the two women in the play who are Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters the wives of the neighbor and the sheriff. (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012). When focusing on the males way of solving the crime, it reminds me of the old cop drama Dragnet which was on TV back when we had black and white televisions. The detectives would always say during the investigation “Just the facts” when interviewing people about the incidents.

In Glaspell’s, Trifles, the men and women have completely different points of view. In the early 20th century, the men were thought of to be as the educated breadwinner for any home. Women were thought to be as just the housewife that cooks, cleans, and loves her husband. The women were basically a possession, or a trophy, to men. But because of the major difference between the two sexes, the women are able to solve a crime from the murderer’s perception.

The main purpose of Glaspell’s play Trifles is to convey the inferiority and exclusion women faced, as a result it is a well-known play that encourages feminism in the American society and today. The attitude of men in the play as the County Attorney and Sheriff is of superiority, contempt, arrogance, and condescension. From the first moment they discard the possibility that in the kitchen, the sphere in which women move, there may be some clue to solve the case, since the things of the kitchen are, for them trifles. Women's concerns about domestic issues (canned foods that have been spoiled, dirty dishcloths, etc.) are minimized by men who call them "little things." When the prosecutor hints that Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale may find some clue

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,

It’s a hot, sticky summer afternoon in Iowa in 1910. A woman stands in the kitchen cleaning the grease from her husband’s daily work. After finally managing to make her newborn lay down for a nap, her husband busts through the front door, waking the baby. While comforting the baby, she asks her husband what his reason is for making such a ruckus. Ignoring the question, he asks for his cigars. She hands them to him as he walks out the front door. He says that he is going back to town to fetch some things. She asks if she can go with him since she’s been at home all day, but he denies her request by saying that she needs to be at home with the baby and not busy with other unimportant things. This is what women of that time and even some women now would experience in their daily life. Gender inequality has always been occurring, and it is a major obstacle being tackled today. Problems with the education system, workforce, and marriages have existed for many years, and the feminist movement was created to combat these problems. Susan Glaspell’s Trifles is one of the first feminist pieces of literature. Many themes arise in the one-act play, but the most important theme is the idea of gender separation. In the play Trifles, Glaspell uses mystery to display the theme of gender separation and to uncover an implicit conflict.