Female Oppression and Liberation in Trifles Between December 1st and 2nd 1900, John Hossack (a farmer from Warren County, Iowa) was murdered with an ax by his wife while in bed (Iowa Cold Cases, Inc). This play was inspired by the true story of Margaret Hossack, an Iowa farm wife who was charged with the murder of her husband John. One of the reporters, Susan Glaspell, decided to write a literary version of this investigation and “Trifles” came to be. Susan Glaspell is a feminist writer from Davenport
The bond between women can be unbreakable. Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” show how two women overlooked can find all the pieces to a missing puzzle but decide on there own justice; silence. If you break down the word trifles it means something of little value. When Hale stated, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell 1040). That was a shot at woman saying they are always worrying over nothing and from that point on it was as if the mindset had changed in
Susan Glaspell’s 1916 play titled “Trifles” uses many elements of drama such as, diction and spectacle through the actions of the two women as they rummage through a unusually messy kitchen to develop complexity and hold the attention of the audience until the very end. Glaspell uses irony and common misconceptions to convey her powerful message “Trifles” is also a play that reflects a clear notion of gender and sex roles. Glaspell, a feminist writer, writes plays that are known for their development
In the dramatic play, “Trifles”, Mr. Wright has been hung in his farmhouse and all suspicions point to his wife. The County Attorney, Sheriff Peters, and a neighbor, Mr. Hale go to Mr. Wright’s house to investigate the crime scene. When they arrive at the house, they find Mrs. Wright sitting on the porch and she is silent. Along with the three men there are two women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. While the men do an investigation, the women conduct an investigation of their own. Walking through
women did not have a voice or a valued opinion; they were simply thought of as unseen and unintelligent. It took nearly 72 years before the 19th amendment to our Constitution was signed into law, granting women the right to vote (Infoplease). During the early part of the twentieth century, the duties and structures of women’s lives would have predisposed them to approach a problem from a different angle than that of men and even today, despite the significant changes in women’s lives and opportunities
Feminist critics strive to weaken this patriarchal hold on society and reveal male bias against women in writing. While these ideas are a well-known concept today, it wasn’t quite as popular back in the 19th century when the play “Trifles” was written by Susan Glaspell. This play, written in 1916, focuses on the culturally rooted ideas of gender and sex roles given to each member of society and how women began to challenge them. Women were mostly just assigned to the reproductive role in society
Desperate Times Call For Desperate Change People are capable of doing crazy things! Nora, in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, loved her husband so much that she committed forgery just for the sake of his wellbeing. Susan Glaspell’s character in Trifles, Mrs. Wright, murders her husband after she discovers that he killed the one most precious thing to her, her pet bird. It was out of love that these women committed illegal crimes. Nora wanted her husband to be healthy because she loved him and knew
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. The
Keana Jones April 6, 2017 “The Revolt of ‘Mother’” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Trifles by Susan Glaspell: Where’s The Power Of Feminism ? In the late nineteenth century, America was considered as a patriarchal society. Where males had all control and women worked as their slave. Women were to support all decisions, cook, clean, conceive children, teach, and remain silent. Women has continuously remained a lower standard than men. Still today, womankind is assumed of as unintelligent, inadequate
it’s all just a different kind of the same thing” (561) is a line spoken in Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles. Writers look at the world around them and envision the way it should be. They take bits and pieces of their life’s landscape, add a liberal dose of surreal ideology and finally toss in human oppressions. To that end, the writer hopes to create a memorable character that can touch the human soul for eternity. Susan Glaspell, a writer in the early twentieth century, lived during a time when women