Symbolism In Susan Glaspells Trifles - 751 Words

By the time girls turn the age of eight, they are conditioned to learn how to cook, do chores, and serve the men in their lives. Because of this stereotyping at such an early age, girls grow up to be a servant to their husband, rather than being an independent, intellectual, working human being. This is what writers like Susan Glaspell tried to change. â€Å"Trifles† is a short play that takes place at a murder scene and entails how two intelligent women solve the murder by using evidence that is hidden from the men’s perspective. The creativeness of Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters reveal the ugly truth that Mrs. Wright, in fact, did kill her husband after years of emotional neglect and abuse. Glaspell’s showcases her righteous views on abusive†¦show more content†¦Already established in the previous paragraph, the kitchen is where majority of the clues are. Oblivious men can’t obtain the information they need due to the mindset of the sheriff, â€Å"n othing here but kitchen things†. The men weren’t focused on all the evidence surrounding them because of typical twentieth century thinking. They don’t even dare to search the kitchen past the dirtiness of it all. Disregarding it as â€Å"women troubles† wasn’t very helpful because later in the play, the women sitting in the kitchen become the true detectives. An example of dramatic irony is that at the end, we see the two ladies cover up all the evidence to defend a fellow women. Because the audience knows about the killer and the detectives don’t, we can say this was done intentionally. Not only are the detectives bad at their jobs, they totally disregard women to hold any sort of value or intelligence. Mrs. Wright’s old alias, a canary, is used deliberately as symbolism. But once the women find the dead bird, they realize what happened in the ongoing murder investigation. Because of the bird’s murder, seemingly done by Mr. W right, revenge was followed through. Previous to finding the bird, Mrs. Hale explained how Minnie us to act before becoming Mrs. Wright, â€Å"She was kind of like a bird herself—real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery. How—she—did—change†. Readers can conclude that the bird was used later to symbolize how Minnie was a bird, but her husband killed that sideShow MoreRelatedTrifles981 Words   |  4 PagesReview of â€Å"Trifles† Susan Glaspell play, â€Å"Trifles†, revolves around Mrs. Wright, a woman who seeks revenge on her husband for oppressing her through their years of marriage. During the time of Glaspell’s play, early 1900’s, men are the dominant figures in society and women are expected to cook, clean, raise children and care for their husbands. Glaspell’s play, â€Å"Trifles†, main goal is portraying a theme of women being oppressed through marriage by the use of symbolism through a canary and a birdRead More The Danger in Susan Glaspells Trifles Essay799 Words   |  4 PagesThe Danger in Susan Glaspells Trifles Susan Glaspells Trifles is a play about a real life murder case that uses symbolism to help bring it to a close. It is easy to see that Mr. and Mrs. Wright live in a society that is cut off from the outside world and also strongly separated by gender. Three of the key symbols in Glaspells play are a simple bird cage, a quilt, and isolationism. Anna Uong of Virginia Tech and Karen Shelton of JSRCC share these same ideas on symbolism. These threeRead MoreThe Use of Symbols in Susan Glaspell’s Play Trifles1421 Words   |  6 Pagesthat to them. To be specific, society in that time took the women’s right away from them; they cannot be what they want to be. However, in this Era, there were many writers, who wrote about this issue. On July 1, 1876, in Davenport, Iowa Susan Glaspell was born. Susan was one of those writers that women’s inferiority in society bothered her. She wrote several literary works which are strongly feminist and discusses the roles that women forced to play in society and the relationships between men andRead MoreTiffles Annotated Bibliography1375 Words   |  6 PagesTrifles Annotated Bibliography Alkalay-Gut, Karen. Jury of Her Peers: The Importance of Trifles. Studies in Short Fiction 21 (Winter 1984): 1-9. In this deeper look into Trifles, Karen goes through the plot and discusses what you should pay more attention too. She describes the symbolism in some of the objects as well as explain the scenes and their little details. Karen finds the difference between male and female perceptions of judgment to be central to the play. She explains that youRead MoreEssay on The Use of Symbolism in Susan Glaspells a Jury of Her Peer933 Words   |  4 PagesESSAY SAMPLE ON THE USE OF SYMBOLISM IN SUSAN GLASPELLS A JURY OF HER PEER Susan Glaspells short story, A Jury of Her Peers, was written long before the modern womens movement began, yet her story reveals, through Glaspells 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. Character names are very important in A Jury of her Peers. The two charactersRead MoreLiterary Analysis of Susan Glaspells Trifles1788 Words   |  7 PagesAn Analysis of Natures in Susan Glaspells Trifles A trifle is something that has little value or importance, and there are many seeming trifles in Susan Glaspells one-act play Trifles. The irony is that these trifles carry more weight and significance than first seems to be the case. Just as Glaspells 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 importanceRead MoreFeminism at Its Best810 Words   |  3 PagesJury of Her Peers,† Susan Glaspell articulates the suffrage women of her time had to endure brought on by the weaker sex stereotype that had plagued the human brain for quite some time. Annenberg Learner states that the short story is based on a true event Susan Glaspell had covered in 1900 while working as a reporter for Des Moines Daily News (Annenberg Learner; Glaspell 179). At first, â€Å"A Jury of Her Peers† was known as a play by Glaspell called â€Å"Trifles.† A year l ater, Susan Glaspell adapted theRead More Susan Glaspells Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers Essay1754 Words   |  8 Pages In the early 1900s Susan Glaspell wrote many works, two stand out, the play Trifles and the short story A Jury of Her Peers. Trifles was written in 1920, while A Jury of Her Peers was written the following year. Trifles was written in only ten days. The true greatness of these works were not recognized until the 1970s. In the short story A Jury of Her Peers a woman named Minnie Wright is accused of the murder of her husband. Minnie Wright is a farmers wife and is also isolatedRead MoreSusan Glaspell s `` The Yellow Wallpaper `` And A Jury Of Her Peers ``2004 Words   |  9 Pageseven in today’s society. This everlasting battle can be seen in both â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and â€Å"A Jury of Her Peers† by Susan Glaspell. Gilman’s story revolves around a woman who has postpartum depression. Her husband, who is also her physician, uses isolation to try and heal his wife’s â€Å"nervous disease.† Glaspell’s story, on the other hand, describes the murder of a man, with his wife being the prime suspect. This story is clearly about a battle of the sexes, whereRead MoreThe Role Of Women In The Doll House And Trifles1667 Words   |  7 Pagesweaker sex. It was the women’s job to stay home to cook and raise the children. While these are still prevalent issues, it is also true that things has gotten better for some women in recent years. Works like â€Å"The Doll House† by Henrik Ibsen and â€Å"Trifles† by Susan Glaspell have helped advance the idea of what roles women should play in society. In each play there are strong, female protagonists who, despite being oppressed by the societal rules against women, learn to rebel and fight for what they believe