Stereotypes and Stereotyping in Susan Glaspell's Trifles Essay

these “female follies,” on men and argues, “From the tyranny of man, I firmly believe, the

Mr. Hale was not the only male character who demonstrated arrogance and insensitivity toward women. The Sheriff who was investigating Mr. Wright’s murder also demonstrated arrogance and insensitivity, hindering his ability to tie Mrs. Wright to

This further develops Emilia’s character to the audience, as it displays her view of men, and how she believes that females are treated unequally in the world. Emilia’s view of men can be summed up in one of her very own quotes:

The men were still looking for evidence, but women are replaying the scene of murder in there minds. They conclude that Mrs. Wright was sewing in kitchen, when Mr. Wright came into the kitchen and saw the bird. This explains why Mrs. Wright was sewing nervously. I assumed that Mr. Wright didn’t like birds, because they are very noisy referring to conversation with Mr. Hale about the joining party phone line. Mr. Wright must have seen the birdcage with the bird. He must have broken the birdcage and broke the bird’s neck. This was enough of a motive need for Mrs. Wright to kill her husband. The

As hardworking women living of the prairie, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters can relate to Mrs. Wright’s situation. They know personally that long days of doing laundry, cooking, and cleaning can become very tiresome (Hedges 91). They realize that living on the prairie can force a woman to be confined to her own house for weeks at a time, and because Mrs. Wright never had children, the grueling loneliness that she suffered must have been excruciating. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters both experience the constant patronization and sexual discrimination that most women in the early twentieth century lived with. They empathize with the difficulties of Mrs. Wright’s life and almost immediately a bond is formed with a woman they do not even know.

Male seducers are represented as boys sowing their oats -- part of normal living. Seduced females are viewed as weak and treacherous --  a treachery that woman in her "frailty" is unable to avoid. This is a very bizarre message.

“Trifles” is a perplexing drama that begins with a murder in a midwestern farmhouse. John Wright is found dead with a knot tied perfectly around his neck. In this one act play, Susan Glaspell, reveals the truth of women's suffrage during the early twentieth century. Women are restricted when it comes to individual rights. Without being able to vote, be a part of a jury, and working mostly out of their home, women have the unfair disadvantage in life. “Trifles” shows the treatment women undergo. The main theme of “Trifles” is the contrast of genders, stereotypes, and how view each other’s role.

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,

The first clue that the woman find is the errant quilt patch. While going through Mrs. Wright's house they find a quilt, and on closer examination notice one quilt patch off from the rest. Mrs. Peters states, ““The sewing, All the rest of them have been so nice and even—but—this one. Why, it looks as if she didn’t know what she

One critic, Leonard Mustazza, argues that Mrs. Hale recruits Mrs. Peters “as a fellow ‘juror’ in the case, moving the sheriff’s wife away from her sympathy for her husband’s position and towards identification with the accused woman” (494). Though this is true, Mrs. Peters also comes to her own understanding. What she sees in the kitchen led her to understand Minnie’s lonely plight as the wife of an abusive farmer. The first evidence Mrs. Peters reaches understanding on her own surfaces in the following passage: “The sheriff’s wife had looked from the stove to the sink to the pail of water which had been

The play ?Trifles?, by Susan Glaspell , is an examination of the different levels of early 1900?s mid-western farming society?s attitudes towards women and equality. The obvious theme in this story is men discounting women?s intelligence and their ability to play a man?s role, as detectives, in the story. A less apparent theme is the empathy the women in the plot find for each other. Looking at the play from this perspective we see a distinct set of characters, a plot, and a final act of sacrifice.

County attorney is trying to extract information from the women but is quick to disregard Mrs. Hale’s statements. An example of this is seen when the county attorney asks if they didn’t get along very well. Mrs. Hale replies (no I don’t mean anything. But I don’t think a place’d be any cheer fuller for john wright’s being in it…(4) The county attorney replies “I’d like to talk more of that a little later. I want to get the lay of things upstairs now. (4) Women are narrow minded. Seen through some sarcastic comments made by the men several times throughout the play. One example is when sheriff comments about how “they wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it” (6) and the men openly laugh at the women. Another thing the mean are weary about the female are that they men want to see what the women are taking out of the house to bring to Mrs. Wright to double check that they are not removing anything that could possibly used as evidence doubting the women’s judgment on what should be left alone. An Example of this is when the Sheriff says. “I suppose Anything Mrs. Peters does’ll be alright. She was to take in some Clothes for her, you know, and a

“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.

One gender stereotype that affects women is that women’s opinions are not as important as men’s opinions. The effect of this stereotype is that men tend to belittle women’s opinions and disregard them. Susan Glaspell shows an example of gender discrimination when the neighbor, Mr. Hale, is being interviewed by the county attorney about how he discovered how Mr. Wright was hanged. At the beginning of the story, Mr. Hale speaks with the county attorney and gives a testimony of how he discovered the death. He explains that he went to Mr. Wright’s home to talk about installing a new telephone line and casually says how Mr. Wright does not care about his wife’s opinions. The gender stereotype is shown in “I said at the same time that I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made difference to John-” (Glaspell, 78). Mr. Hale’s statement reveals the gender stereotype because it shows how Mrs. Wright’s opinions are not important to her husband when Mr. Hale says “I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John-.” This reveals that Mr. Wright does not care about Mrs. Wright’s opinion and how he belittles and disregards her ideas. This makes Mrs. Wright feel sad since she can not have what she desires. The same gender

Throughout the story, the constant criticism of the women’s behavior by the men caused the female characters to develop a kinship and bond; they form a sisterhood. In one of the scenes, the attorney is angry that the towels in the kitchen are dirty. He kicks some pans that are under the sink and accuses Mrs. Wright (the victim’s wife) of not being a good house keeper. Mrs. Hale, one of the women, reminds the attorney that towels get dirty because men’s hands aren’t always clean. At first we suspect that the two women are friends but when the attorney asks her if they were friends Mrs. Hale responds by saying “I’ve not seen much of her of late years. I’ve not been in this house—it’s more than a year.” After the men leave, Mrs. Hale reorganizes the pans that