Sunday, April 5, 2015

In Susan Glaspell's play, Trifles, what differences between men and women does this play imply?

The differences implied between men and women in Susan
Glaspell's play, Trifles, is that the male-dominated society has no
concept of the hardships, trials and hard work that surrounds the life of a woman—and
wife—at the beginning of the 20th Century. In that men very much still treated their
wives as chattel, or a possession, they gave the women little credit for the work they
accomplished, for the disappointments they faced, the ability of men to physically,
mentally and emotionally abuse their wives, and their lack of concern for, and respect
of, women in general.


As the play begins, the men enter the
house to find evidence to convict Mrs. Wright of murdering her husband. This
woman whose life centers around things the men consider "trifling,"
has dared to harm (and kill) her social superior. The men intend to prove Mrs. Wright's
guilt and punish her.


readability="9">

SHERIFF. Well, can you beat the woman! Held for
murder and worryin' about her preserves.


COUNTY ATTORNEY. I
guess before we're through she may have something more serious than preserves to worry
about.



The women enter,
influenced at first by the attitudes of the men. They don't know Mrs. Wright very well,
but it is a charitable act they are doing to bring things to Mrs. Wright while she is in
jail. As the men blatantly show their disregard for this woman and her hard work, they
also show their disregard for Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters—in fact,
for all women. As the ladies learn more and more about Mrs.
Wright's situation, they become sympathetic towards the woman accused of killing her
husband. Mrs. Wright's life has changed dramatically since her youth. Mrs. Hale
remembers:


readability="8">

She--come to think of it, she was kind of like a
bird herself--real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and--fluttery.
How--she--did--change.



Whereas
the men could never put themselves in the place of a woman—they discredit most of the
efforts put forth by women on a daily basis by insulting Mrs. Wright—Mrs. Hale and Mrs.
Peters can empathize. Mrs. Peters remembers a bully who killed her
kitten before her eyes—she admits she could have "hurt" the bully
at that moment.


readability="13">

MRS. PETERS. (in a
whisper
). When I was a girl--my kitten--there was a boy took a hatchet, and
before my eyes--and before I could get there--(Covers her face an
instant
.) If they hadn't held me back, I would have-- (Catches
herself, looks upstairs, where steps are heard, falters weakly.
)--hurt
him.



Mrs. Wright's bird was
destroyed at the hands of another bully: her husband.


Mrs.
Peters recalls how hard it was for her, to lose her child at a very young
age.



MRS.
HALE (her own feeling not interrupted.) If there'd been years and
years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still, after the bird
was still.


MRS. PETERS (something within her
speaking
). I know what stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my
first baby died--after he was two years old, and me with no other
then--



Mrs. Wright has no
children, no companionship at all, and this is another kind of pain women
face.


The play shows the enormous divide that exists
between men and women of the day, especially in the way that the men belittle the daily
existence of the wife, and society's acceptance of this inequitable social roles and
standings in the early 20th Century.

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