Trifles As A Feminist Essay - Mars vs Venus in Susan Glaspel
Trifles As A Feminist Essay - Mars vs Venus in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles
After reading Trifles, one may think about the book called, Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus by Dr. John Gray. Both works tend to illustrate the vast differences between the two sexes. Due to such differences, women are often pitted against men. Mention the word feminist and most people think of the modern women’s movement. Long before the bra burning of the 1960s, however, writers were writing about the lives and concerns of women living in a male dominated society. In Trifles, the women of Venus triumph over the men of Mars to emphasize the author’s feminist theme. The feminist theme in the play can be defined by contrasting the male and female characters and analyzing the symbolism of the canary and the quilt.
Susan Glaspell wrote Trifles in 1916, a time when women were beginning to challenge their socially defined roles. Women were realizing that their identities as wives and domestics kept them in a subordinate position in society. Because women were demanding more freedom, traditional institutions such as marriage, which confined women to the home and made them mere extensions of their husbands, were beginning to be reexamined (Allison 1). Glaspell chose as the play’s protagonist a married woman, Minnie Wright, who has challenged society’s expectations by murdering her husband. Minnie’s defiant act has occurred before the action begins and as the play unfolds two women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale piece together the details of the situation surrounding the murder. As the events unfold, however, it becomes clear that the focus of the play is not on who killed John Wright, but rather on the themes of the subordinate role of women. The men in the play, Mr. Hale, Sheriff Peters, and the County Attorney, are at the house to investigate the murder. The women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, are there to gather some things to take to Mrs. Wright in jail. The play carefully distinguishes between the affairs of men and the concerns of women. The men and the women both observe the house is generally a mess, but they see the messiness from different points of view. The men see the mess as negligence on the part of Minnie and her housewife duties. This...