Trifles as Feminist Literature
American drama studies often neglect the influence of female writers and focus primarily on writers such as Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller. However, women often worked in collaboration with their male playwright counterparts, and in fact, helped to establish and propagate various dramatic movements in the United States. Among these influential women playwrights was Susan Glaspell, who along with Eugene O'Neill, George "Jig" Cram Cook, John eed and Louise Bryant, Max Eastman and Ida auh, and Edna St. Vincent Millay helped to establish the Playwright's Theatre in Cape Cod (euben, 2011). The Playwright's Theatre produced and presented 16 of O'Neill's plays, 11 of Glaspell's plays, and a total of 93 works by more than 50 writers during six seasons spanning from 1916 to 1921-1922 (euben, 2011). One of Glaspell's plays performed during this time was "Trifles" (1916) which is not only based on a murder…...

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References

Glaspell, S. (1916). Trifles. Retrieved from http://www.one-act-

plays.com/dramas/trifles.html.

Reinhardt, N.S. (1981). New Directions for Feminist Criticism in Theatre and the Related Arts. A Feminist Perspective in the Academy: the Difference It

Makes. Ed. Elizabeth Langland and Walter Gove. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 25-51.

In Trifles, the country house where the plot takes place is also the scene of a murder. Mrs. right kills her husband over a "trifle," because he has killed her canary. The bird, as the house itself, symbolizes entrapment and prison-like life. The lonely country woman feels trapped in her role as a country farm wife, whose only concern must be the trifles of daily life, such as the preserves, and all her other chores. The signs of "incomplete work" that are seen on the scene, show that Mrs. right felt imprisoned by her daily joyless life: "Mrs. Hale: (looking about.) it never seemed a very cheerful place. County Attorney. No -- it's not cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the homemaking instinct."(Glaspell, 40)

After killing her husband however, she will only go to another kind of prison, to an actual jail. Probably this is why she wants her apron there,…...

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Works Cited

Glaspell, Susan. Plays by Susan Glaspell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Masque of Red Death. New York: Booksurge Classics, 2004.

Trifles" and "Fences"
While both "Fences" by August Wilson and "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell depict the stresses and strains upon a group of people who are marginalized by mainstream society, the dramas deploy different narrative techniques to do so. "Trifles" describes the difficulties women face in male-dominated society on stage, while "Fences" makes its African-American characters the center of the dialogue and staging, and white influence occurs in the margins, off-stage and between acts.

Although men talk through much of the short play's "Trifles'" duration, female utterances gain significance when they are made because of their pointed nature in contrast to male verbosity. Over the course of the play, the women of the play examine the accused protagonist's home and collect her things for her stay in prison. The drama of "Trifles" is created by the contrast created between mainstream, male society's expressed views, through the representative voices of the police,…...

Trifles Add Up to a Big Case
One of the greatest lessons in life is the one that things are never how they appear; something else is always going on and it is best to pay attention to those other things to get a clear picture of what is actually going on. In Susan Glaspell's play, Trifles, we see an example of how looking beneath the surface proves to be very critical in figuring out what happened in the right's house. The small trifles, which the men choose to overlook, become the most significant aspects of the case but these men are too prejudice to be open to that fact. Through the seemingly insignificant details the women find, Glaspell is proving a larger point that some people cannot see the truth because of their mindset.

The men in the play seem to think trifles are useless. This arrogant attitude immediately creates…...

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Works Cited

Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York W.W. Norton and Company. 1991. pp. 1115-25.

El Dorado by Edgar Allan Poe
Susan Glaspell worked as a legislative reporter for Des Moines Daily News between 1899 and 1901, during which time she witnessed and covered the trial of Margaret Hossack, accused of attacking and murdering her husband. Glaspell kept files that recorded the entire investigation throughout several months and wrote Trifles 15 years later. The play has only one act and there are five characters altogether, three men and two women. The central figures in the play -- John and Minnie Wright -- are only referred to.

At the turn of the century, realism had already established itself as a promising direction that rejected the artificialities of romanticism to depict experiences and stories of people rooted in everyday life and relating to the mundane. When Glaspell witnessed the murder trial, as well as when she wrote the play, that was still a time when women's role in…...

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Bibliography

Jones, Ann. Women who kill. New York: The Feminist Press, 2009. Print.

Ben-Zvi, Linda. "Murder: She Wrote": The Genesis of Susan Glaspell's "Trifles." Theater Journal 4.2 (1992): 141-162. Web. 2/12/2014.

Glaspell, Susan."The Hossack murder. " True Crime: An American Anthology. Ed. Harold Schechter. Library of America, 2008. 179-195. Print.

Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. New York: Frank Shay / The Washington Square Players, 1916. Digital File: The Internet Archive.

Murder without mayhem in "Oedipus Rex" and "Trifles"
Both the dramas "Trifles" and "Oedipus Rex" deal with murders that are committed off stage of close family members, in one case that of a husband, in the other that of a father. Although both Mrs. right and Oedipus are guilty of their crimes, however in the first act of "Trifles," gradually it becomes clear as small details are revealed that something was amiss in the relationship of the rights, and that Mrs. right had just grievances against the man who suppressed her soul, indeed against all men. The men do not understand this, nor of the limited nature of Mrs. right's life. For instance, Mrs. Peters says of Mrs. right, "she worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire'd go out and her jars would break. The Sheriff scoffs: "ell, can you beat the women! Held for murder…...

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Works Cited

Gardner, et al. Literature: A Portable Anthology. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004.

They admit that Mr. Wright was difficult and "cheerless," but no one seemed to worry about Mrs. Wright or how it affected her. Perhaps most interesting is how perceptive the women are, while the men are investigating and "in charge." It is the social custom in this area that the men tend to their work, the women tend to theirs, and they do not confer very much. The women find the motive for the murder, and understand how far Mr. Wright pushed his wife, and the men do not have a clue. They simply think the "little women" are quaint for worrying about frozen preserves and quilting. The social custom is for the men to take charge, but it is the women who are perceptive enough to understand what happened and feel remorse for their own lack of friendship and understanding. The moral of this story is that sometimes…...

Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen, and "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell. Specifically, it will compare and contrast Torvald and his attitude toward Nora in the play, to the men's attitudes toward women in the play "Trifles." Both these pieces show women treated simply as idiotic "things" by the men in the pieces, but the women are clearly smarter than the men are, and it is the men who end up looking idiotic in the end.
MEN'S ATTITUDES TOWAD WOMEN

Trifles" tells the tale of a woman driven to the "end of her rope" by a spiteful, mean-spirited man, but it is also a story for all women, celebrating how they can band together in a crisis. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters sense immediately what Mrs. Wright was dealing with, and they attempt to protect her when the men begin to criticize her housekeeping skills. They astutely note, "MS. HALE. No, I don't…...

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References

Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." Virginia Commonwealth University. 2002. 1 April 2003.  http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/trifles.htm 

Ibsen, Henrik. "A Doll's House." Project Gutenberg. 2002. 1 April 2003.  http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2542

This includes the kitchen and anything related to Mrs. right. Ironically, the clues to the murder are in these places. The women notice the misplaced loaf of bread, the birdcage and the quilt "that's not sewed very good" (1121). The crime scene is all about trifles but the men would never know.
hile women have progressed over the decades, there are still certain areas of life that are directly associated with women. omen are still the primary family members that take care of the household and the family. omen still pay attention to the kinds of details that men tend to overlook - sometimes the most important details of all as Trifles demonstrates.

orks Cited

Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York .. Norton and Company. 1991. pp.…...

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Works Cited

Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York W.W. Norton and Company. 1991. pp. 1115-25.

Symbols in Trifles of a Woman’s Oppression
As Ben-Zvi notes, “women who kill evoke fear because they challenge societal constructs of femininity—passivity, restraint, and nurture” (141). For this reason, Susan Glaspell couched her play Trifles in comedic irony show as to show the real effects of oppressed womanhood that finally explodes in a way that would get the point across to the audience without frightening it to death. After all, the play was written at a time before women had even received the right to vote in 1920. It was conceived decades before the Feminist Movement came into existence during the 1960s following Betty Friedan’s landmark work The Feminine Mystique. Trifles contrasts sharply with the view of womanhood that had emerged by the end of the 20th century, at which point women had entered into the workforce, were running large companies, and were no longer expected to stay in their homes…...

Nature of omen
In many ways, the relationship between the female characters in Edith harton's "Roman Fever" and Susan Glaspell's "Trifles" is diametrically opposed between the two stories. Although there is a degree of amicability prevalent in the relationship in each tale, the principle characters in harton's narrative are largely antagonistic towards one another, whereas the principles in Glaspell's play seem to grow closer towards one another the more time they spend together. hat is significant about this fact is that the reason for the animosity in the former work and the growing sense of unity in the latter is relatively the same -- the nature of women. The conflict in "Trifles" presents a number of facets about the nature of women that allows for solidarity in the face of adversity, whereas the conflict in "Roman Fever" illustrates aspects of womanhood that is indicative of disunity and antagonism.

From the very…...

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Works Cited

Wharton, Edith. "Roman Fever." Classweb.gmu.edu. Web. http://classweb.gmu.edu/rnanian/Wharton-RomanFever.html

Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." One-Act-Plays.com. 1916. Web.  http://www.one-act-plays.com/dramas/trifles.html

Wright indicated her dead husband was after being questioned by Mr. Hale. Notwithstanding the close spatial relationship of husband and wife sleeping in the same bed, the murder took place without Mrs. Wright's knowledge. The upstairs area is clearly delineated from the downstairs kitchen where women "ruled the roost" when the men laugh at the women for their interest in quilting styles rather than the crime at hand. In addition, Glaspell also draws on the spatial relationships that exist between women in terms of their geographic proximity as well as their natural camaraderie and fellowship. Indeed, Mrs. Hale admits, "I might have known she needed help! I know how things can be -- for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things -- it's all just a different kind of the same thing."...

As mothers, wives and housekeepers women can hardly enact their sensibility: "Not having children makes less work -- but it makes a quiet house, and right out to work all day, and no company when he did come in."(Glaspell)
Men do nothing but laugh at the trivialities that women are preoccupied with, preserving their belief that the sensibility is something exaggerated and that women always make a fuss over the most banal things:

My, it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us. ouldn't they just laugh! Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a -- dead canary. As if that could have anything to do with--with -- wouldn't they laugh!"(Glaspell)

Glaspell's play therefore is truly enlightening in many respects, and is worthy of being represented on stage as it manages to pinpoint the way in which the interior world and the sensibility of the women is for the most…...

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Works Cited

Glaspell, Susan. Trifles.  http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/trifles.htm 

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. -- The_Glass_Menagerie.htmhttp://staff.bcc.edu/faculty_websites/jalexand/Williams

Susan Glaspell. Trifles.

Then after Homer disappeared, she gave china painting lessons until a new generation lost interest, and then "The front door closed...remained closed for good" (Faulkner pp). Emily's depression caused her to become a recluse.
All three female protagonists are so dominated by male authority figures that their loneliness leads to severe depression, which in turn leads to madness, then eventually acts of violence. None of the women have active control of their lives, however, each in their own way makes a desperate attempt to take action, to seek a type of redemption for the misery and humiliation they have endured by the male figures in their lives.

orks Cited

Curry, Renee R. "Gender and authorial limitation in Faulkner's 'A Rose for Emily.'" The Mississippi Quarterly. June 22, 1994. Retrieved July 28, 2005 from HighBeam Research Library eb site.

Faulkner, illiam. "A Rose for Emily." Retrieved July 28, 2005 at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/wf_rose.html

Gilman1, Charlotte Perkins. "The…...

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Works Cited

Curry, Renee R. "Gender and authorial limitation in Faulkner's 'A Rose for Emily.'" The Mississippi Quarterly. June 22, 1994. Retrieved July 28, 2005 from HighBeam Research Library Web site.

Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Retrieved July 28, 2005 at  http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/wf_rose.html 

Gilman1, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper (1899)." Retrieved July 29, 2005 at http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/wallpaper.html

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper" 1913. Retrieved July 28, 2005 at http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/whyyw.html

Subjective truth forms our perception of reality when regarding people, cultures, religion, or any other differentiating factor, and this is true of the male gender-perception of women. Plausibility structures, which govern our perspective and control how we perceive the Other, are part and parcel of every culture, gender, religion, and community. In fact, they are directly responsible for our ability to believe the seemingly unbelievable about others. For example, for a very long time, members of hate groups (which they would call patriotic organizations) have created a culture in which its members are convinced of the reality that all people who are not white are so different from them as to be rendered unimportant. Men have, for millennia, subjected women to a 'reality' that tells them they are inferior of mind and body, are unable to engage in the kinds of activities that men can, and that their contributions to…...

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Referenced

Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." Literature and the Writing Process, 6th Edition. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X. Day, Robert Funk [Editors]. New York: Prentiss Hall, 2001. pp977-986.

Hwang, David. "M. Butterfly." Literature and the Writing Process, 6th Edition. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X. Day, Robert Funk [Editors]. New York: Prentiss Hall, 2001. pp706-750.