Susan Glaspell 's ' Trifles ' And ' A Doll House '

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.

Susan Glaspell’s one-act play “Trifles” was written in 1916. It was written based on real events. When Glaspell was a reporter, she covered a murder case in a small town in Iowa. Later, she wrote this short play which was inspired by her investigation and what she observed. Glaspell used irony, symbolism, and setting in her creation of the authentic American drama, “Trifles”, to express life for women in a male-dominated society in the early nineteen hundreds.

Gender roles throughout history have been portrayed in many works of literature. We imagine that in 2016 our world would be at its absolute best regarding the roles of women considering we just had our first woman from a major party run for the highest office in the nation. Unfortunately, we still seem to have a way to go. Oscar Wilde said, "Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them." It has only been in the past few years that women have stood up and demanded equal pay and equal treatment. There are still many places in the world where women are still very oppressed. In Susan Glaspell 's "Trifles," written in 1916, the theme throughout is that the men are the smart, dominant ones, and therefore very chauvinistic, and the women only concern themselves with sewing and cleaning which is, therefore, insignificant and trifle. The women from the start of the play very clearly see clues to the murder that the men do not ever see. Glaspell tells the story of the murder of Mr. John Wright, who was found strangled in his bed. His wife Minnie is the main suspect. The men in the story, the County Attorney Mr. Henderson, the Sheriff Mr. Peters, and the neighbor who found the body, Mr. Hale, look for scientific clues and totally overlook what is right in front of them. In the 1900 's roles were clearly defined by the men and this is carried throughout the play. The women in this play are the unsung heroes while the men who are

The plays, Trifles and A Dollhouse use the literary tool of symbolism to portray the way women were treated throughout the nineteenth century. Susan Glaspell uses the bird cage and the dead bird to signify the role and life of women in marriage and society, whereas Henrik Ibsen uses the dollhouse. These symbols allow the reader to recognize the plays main similarities in the treatment of women, such as men dismissing women as trivial and treating them like property; however, the plays portray the women’s lifestyles as different which seal their fates.

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,

In the late ninetieth and early twentieth centuries women were thought of as dolls, puppets, or property. In many cases, they weren’t allowed to make decisions for themselves. Women were only good at worrying about frivolous housework and lighthearted pleasantries. In the two plays “A Doll House” by Heinrich Ibsen, and “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell, there are several exploitations of this way of thinking.

The plot of both Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll House” provides scope for a few scenes that lack the presence of all or any men. These scenes, consisting of communication between the female characters, assist in developing the theme of women openly defying the fact that the society they live in is primarily run by men. All the power and authority in their society, no matter the situation, belongs to the men while the women are simply excluded. The women in these plays defy the norms set by society and manage to evade the expectations of their patriarchal societies.

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen and Trifles by Susan Glaspell are two plays that depict sexist attitudes towards women as both take place in societies where men are deemed as strong and smart and women as vulnerable and even silly. In A Doll's House, women are depicted as beings whom are there to sacrifice for their men. Women are not to be taken seriously. Men, by and large, take women for granted because they are blind to the sacrifices that women do make for them; instead men see themselves as more important because they are the heads of households who make money and decisions for the family. In A Doll's House Nora's ultimate sacrifice is finally walking away from her family. In Trifles, women are once again rather ignored in society. This is reflected in the story that takes place in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Wright. Mr. Wright has just been murdered and some important men come to investigate the crime. The men believe that Mrs. Wright murdered her husband, but are confused as to why she would do it. As two of the men's wives wait downstairs while the men do their important work, they end up solving the crime. The name "Trifles" comes from the men in the story who scoff at the women for paying attention to "trifles" though, what they do not know is that it is these very trifles that help the women in solving the crime. In A Doll's House, Nora goes behind her husband's back and takes out a loan to help him. The lengths that Nora goes to in getting this loan must be kept in

Susan Glaspell uses a variety of symbols in her play to demonstrate the stereotypical view and treatment of women by men during the start of the twentieth century. She intricately portrays the female characters in her story as intelligent, but passive due to the fact that males dismiss their ideas and conversations as unimportant. The play, Trifles, uses multiple symbols to show how men fail to recognize the intelligence of women, and oppress the feminists’ way of thinking throughout society.

Throughout history women have been handed a subservient role to her male counterpoint. Females in the late 19th and early 20th century were treated like a second-class citizen, and were thought of as being the weaker sex. It was the women’s job to stay home to cook and raise the children. While these are still prevalent issues, it is also true that things has gotten better for some women in recent years. Works like “The Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen and “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell have helped advance the idea of what roles women should play in society. In each play there are strong, female protagonists who, despite being oppressed by the societal rules against women, learn to rebel and fight for what they believe is right. While there are

“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

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.

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,