Trifles, A One Demonstration Play By Susan Glaspell

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.

“Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is situated in 1916 and is a one act play which incorporates essential components of what the women’s rights movement was about. After moving on from Iowa’s Drake University in 1899, Glaspell commenced her writing vocation of composing short stories and books. The play from Glaspell recounts the story of a homicide mystery involving the married couple of Mrs. Wright (Minnie) and her spouse, the murder victim, John Wright; this story also incorporates the outlook of society towards women being viewed as beneath men. “Trifles” demonstrates the unfair mentality regularly acknowledged among men towards women in 1916. In addition, it showcases the big role comradery plays for women in becoming equal represented

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,

Marriage a sacred bond uniting two people who are so deeply in love that they can't live without one another, for even a second. Many couples in this situation take these marriage vows to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. Those vows remain cherished throughout the years of marriage. Partner’s share intimate details and form a strong trustworthy bond with one another. Often couples settle into a routine, move out of the city and have children. Occasionally over time that love will fade; couples change and lose interest in one another and begin to look for a way out of marriage. In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles, there is evidence to

Susan Glaspell’s one-act play covers issues regarding female oppression and patriarchal domination. The play still exists as a fascinating hybrid of murder mystery and social commentary on the oppression of women. When Margaret Hossack was charged with the murder of her sixty year old husband John, the man she had been married to for thirty three years. Killed by two blows to his head with an ax, John Hossack was thought to be a cold mannered and difficult man to be married to, but he didn’t deserve his

Susan Glaspell's short story, A Jury of Her Peers, was written long before the modern women's movement began, yet her story reveals, through Glaspell's use of symbolism, the role that women are expected to play in society. Glaspell illustrates how this highly stereotypical role can create oppression for women and also bring harm to men as well.

“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.

When a woman marries she is expected to give up her family, her last name, and her virginity. In other words she is expected to give up the life she knew. Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles tells the story of a woman that gave up her all to please society and her husband. The story examines a woman who sacrificed her tranquility, her talents, and her individuality. In the end, the woman even gave up her freedom.

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.

“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

“Trifles” is a one act play written by Susan Glaspell in 1916, which was first performed on August 8th by the Provincetown Players in Provincetown, Massachusetts at the Wharf Theater. The author, Susan Glaspell, was born on July 1, 1876 in Davenport, Iowa. Over her lifetime she had become proficient in many different professions: Playwright, Actress, Novelist, and Journalist. For her works, she won an American Pulitzer Prize in 1931. The Provincetown Players was founded by Susan Glaspell and her husband, George Cram Cook. This was the first modern American theater company. Most of her works centered on current issues at the time such at gender roles between males and females. Susan Glaspell was not the typical woman of her time, she decided to go to school and get herself an education and find herself a her own career instead of waiting around for a husband. In 1899, Glaspell graduated from Drake University in Iowa and found herself a job as a journalist for the Des Monies Daily newspaper. The play Trifles was based upon a story that Glaspell reported on when she was a journalist.

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 can be regarded as a work of feminist literature. The play depicts the life of a woman who has been suppressed, oppressed, and subjugated by a patronizing, patriarchal husband. Mrs. Wright is eventually driven to kill her "hard" (1178) husband who has stifled every last twitch of her identity. Trifles dramatizes the hypocrisy and ingrained discrimination of male-dominated society while simultaneously speaking to the dangers for women who succumb to such hierarchies. Because Mrs. Wright follows the role mapped by her husband and is directed by society's patriarchal expectations, her identity is lost somewhere along the way. However, Mrs. Hale and Mrs.