Theme Of Trifles And A Doll House

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.

In Trifles, the differences in evidence that the men and woman notice, led men to failure in the investigation of Mr. Wright’s death, because men and women shared different perspectives in the same setting. Hence, even though all the items in the home of the Wright family, held significance and meaning to the death of Mr. Wright, the male characters dismissed these elements as they were more interested in forensic evidence. Whereas the women, on the contrary, caught on to these clues and recognized the relevance, as it revealed the bleakness of Mrs. Wright’s life. The quilt, kitchen and canary/cage are just a few of the many symbols in the play that the men treated as mere trifles which the women weighed important.

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.

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

Women were only for a moment part of the social role during the early twentieth century and were primarily given the reproductive role which limited them to raising children and taking care of their households and husbands. Susan Glaspell, a writer in the early twentieth century, lived during that time. As a result, most of Glaspell’s drama finds fault with society’s restricting view of women. This is made known through her play “Trifles.” Glaspell added distinct fine points to the play that allowed it to express sympathy and speak up for women.

In both plays, A Doll’s House and Trifles, the discussion of gender roles is greatly examined. During this time, being a woman meant you had no control and had to do everything with a man. A man had all of the control, and their job was to protect and guide their wives. Both of these plays share this similar ideology, as all of the male characters believe that women are incapable of doing much and their worries and wants are unimportant.

The author of “A Doll’s House”, Henrik Ibsen was criticized for his controversial advocacy of moral and social reform by failing to respect the institution of marriage in his plays. A Doll’s House presents the aftermath of nineteenth-century patriarchal husbandry like those in Susan Glaspell’s play, “Trifles”. In many of the parlor plays of this era, female spectators reflect on their individual situations, revealing the unsatisfying nature of a woman’s position in marriage which alters their cultural and spatial conception of the domestic (Mazur 14-15). While male spectators frequently use terms such as hysteria, abnormality, and unacceptability to women acting outside what men

Women “are used to worrying over trifles” (1083). Henderson and Mr. Peters begin to make fun of the women for talking about whether Mrs. Wright was going to “quilt it or just knot it” (1085), even though Mrs. Wright’s quilt is a key piece of their evidence. The men think that the women have no important role in being at the crime scene, but Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find everything the County Attorney and the Sheriff need to pin Mrs. Wright to the crime and seem to do a better job than they

In the play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell, the central action revolves around a murder. John Wright has been murdered by his wife; the sheriff, the county attorney, and a neighbor named Lewis Hale investigate the house for clues to prosecute Mrs. Wright. As the three men search for evidence, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale put together their own clues to find out the reason why Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. In searching for clues, the 3 men constantly put the 2 women down for paying attention to “womanly” things like Mrs. Wrights fruit freezing. Throughout the investigation, the 2 women gather their own evidence, that seem unimportant to the men but important to women. In doing their own investigation, the two women grow empathetic to Mrs. Wright; she has suffered emotional abuse and neglect for years. One piece of evidence is the Mrs. Wrights dead canary. The climax of the play happens when the two women hid the dead canary and remove the motive needed to convict Mrs. Wright.

In the short play ”Trifles” written by Susan Glaspell she tells the story of two very different investigations and insights into a murder of a Mr. John Wright and his wife . The way she tells us the story comes from two different perspectives. The male characters in the play carry on their investigation and come to some conclusions while their female counterparts carry on an investigation of their own. The play opens with the arrival of the characters in Mr. and Mrs. Wrights kitchen, quickly recounting the events that led to the discovery of Mr. Wrights hanging. The male characters then go upstairs to explore a motive for the hanging while the women look around downstairs for things to take back to Mrs. Wright while she is in custody. Glaspell uses the symbols of an unkempt home, a bird and birdcage, and an unfinished quilt to

In the plays “A Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen and “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell, we can optically discern that the characters decided to act to solve a crisis in their lives. Through the analysis of both “A Doll House” and “Trifles”, we can visually perceive the roles of women have been inhibited which led to Nora and Mrs. Wright acting out to feel in control of their own lives. Through the characters of Nora and Mrs. Wright, we can optically discern that the rebellious nature of leading characters that led to the circumstances that asserted their positions. The women did not have to make the cull they did, Mrs. Wright by taking a life and Nora by forging her father’s signature. Nora and Mrs. Wright were not prevalent in the circumstance of their own lives, women have been edified to do and verbalize as their

In this play, the men leave their wives in the kitchen, because they believe that women focus on insignificant things and are incompetent of logical thinking. Both “A Doll House” and “Trifles” focus on the role of women in marriage to develop the theme of male dominance in society, but both differ on the sudden decision to self- empowerment. The first

All through history, a lady’s role is to be devoted and a respectful wife. Her principal commitment is to support, serve, and live for her husband and kids. In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Susan’s Glaspell’s Trifles, two unique ladies settle on a choice to take matters into their own hands by doing what they need to do, regardless of what the result might be and disregarding what society considers. These two ladies originated from various homes and lead altogether different lives yet,

Today, the accepted roles of both women and men judged by society’s expectations is an extremely controversial topic. Feminism is a battle that many women are fighting, because even though today’s women can be and accomplish almost anything, men often play the more superior role in many relationships. The role of women has been viewed differently throughout different points in history and in different areas. However, many people don 't realize that the slight lack of power women seem to have nowadays has lessened with time, in all areas. Even though many may argue that men have an abuse of power in modern times, women have far more rights in government and society’s standings than they once had . A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen sheds light on the typical role of women in 1870’s Norway, showing how women were treated then: almost as objects with no real important place in society. This gives modern readers a clear view of how many more opportunities that women have nowadays. This essay will combat the derogatory view of women that many people may still have yet how it has lessened and changed . It will examine the role of men in the time period of the play as well. This essay will look into Ibsen’s life and motives for writing, because not only did he choose to give light to feminism, but he alluded to looking down on the role of men. It will explore what themes in the play that relate to Ibsen’s personal life. This essay will also explore the minds of the

In the play Trifles, there is tension between the male characters and the female characters, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. The male characters believe that they are focusing on the important parts of the investigation of the death of Mr. Wright while the women focus on “trifles,” or minor details that have little importance. The men laugh at any evidence that the women bring up, although the evidence that the women find is the most compelling evidence of the investigation. For example, when the women discover the quilt that Mrs. Wright was knitting, the men laugh and say the women “wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it!” (Trifles, p. 926). They disregard the quilt of having any importance at all, even though the quilt eventually leads the women to an important clue in the murder investigation, a dead bird. The dead bird is important because it is evidence of a motive for Mrs. Wright to kill Mr. Wright (assuming he is the one who