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Gender and its roles in literature
Susan Glaspell's Trifles
Portrayal of gender issues in literature
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Recommended: Gender and its roles in literature
With the 19th century having a strict control over women and their roles contributed to the author's writing the two stories. Women had to live up to Patriarchal codes. Patriarch is where the men is the Supreme authority, meaning he controls everything. It causes conflicts because women were limited of their equal rights and did not have much of a say so. Seeing them as just housewives and not being able to come out as they please caused the women to go into postpartum depression.
Dickens uses juxtaposition to compare Lucie and Madame Defarge to show the archetype of the gender ideal. Dickens uses juxtaposition at least three times to show how similar and different these two women are. The first example where Dickens compares Lucie and Madame Defarge is on page 270-271, “La Force! Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and serviceable in your life- and you were always both- you will compose yourself now, to do exactly as I bid you; for more depends upon it than you can think, or I can say. [...]you cannot possibly stir out.
Section 1: Introduction Susan Glaspell’s Trifles is a play about the effect of gender differences on perceptions of duty, law, and justice. The play Trifles was a murder mystery that got investigated by the County Attorney (George Henderson), the Sheriff (Henry Peters) along with his wife (Mrs. Peters), and a neighbor farmer (Lewis Hale) with his wife (Mrs. Hale). The story took place in an isolated farm house that was miles from the rest of the community in the Midwest. The victim of this murder mystery was John Wright as he was found dead with a rope around this neck.
Mrs. Wright is the main character in Susan Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles. While Mrs. Wright is being held by the police for her husband’s murder, a few men go to investigate her home, and a few women go along to gather some of her things to bring to her in jail. As the ladies collect Mrs. Wright’s possessions, they begin to come across trifles. The trifles include: a messy kitchen, a poorly sewn quilt, and a broken bird cage with a missing bird. The women view these items as important clues, and withhold their findings from the men so that they could help Mrs. Wright out of her troubles.
The Pursuit of Justice for Women Through the Comparison of Glaspell's Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers Susan Glaspell first wrote the play "Trifles" and then a short time later followed up with the short story "A Jury of Her Peers". The story and the play contain many parallels such as: the setting, the plot, and the same characters. Even though they are very similar they have different titles which seem to be fitting for each. In the play, Hale states that women are constantly "worrying over trifles. " Yet, these trifles are the evidence the men need to convict Minnie.
Stereotypes are widely accepted pieces of judgment about a person or group but can be very biased, even though they aren’t always accurate especially when it's about being given a gender a role in today’s society. While there are some differences between Fences and other stories read are quite obvious, the similarities between the plays Fences and Trifles are the harsh gender roles given to women and they deserve to be spoken deeper about. Although gender roles today are better than it was ten or more years ago, looking at Trifles’ text pieces one can reflect and say women not so long ago had it hard too, possibly more than in today’s time. In Trifles, Mrs.Peters (Sheriff’s wife) and Mrs.Hale were neglected by the County Attorney,
One way in which gender expectations influenced the narrator's behavior is through the performance of masculinity. The narrator and his friends engage in reckless and violent behavior in an attempt to prove their masculinity to one another. As stated in her in her book "Stiffed: The Betrayal
In this section of Drama and Dramatic Poetry, my English class read “Trifles” and “POOF!”. “Trifles” is a one-act play that is dramatic and serious. In this play, the husband, John Wright, was found strangled with a rope in his bedroom and all of the evidence points to his wife, Minnie Foster. The question explored throughout the play is why she killed him. The story hints that she was a victim of domestic violence, but the audience cannot be absolutely sure because it does not outright say it.
The play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is largely based on stereotypes. The most prevalent one explores the difference between gender roles. Glaspell exerts the repression of women in the 1900s. During that time, women were highly looked down upon by men, and were only seen as the housekeepers and child bearers. This example is displayed throughout the play with the men, however, the women in this play prove that the stereotypes of gender roles held against them are completely wrong, which is shown through the characters, set design, and symbolism.
The traditional gender roles are noticeable in the novel because the women were either in the homes or in the Red Center. The men could have different kinds of jobs and even rise to a higher social status. Women were to remain the same all through their
The men in Trifles may be detectives, but they are incompetent to the case, due to their ignorance. Ken Jaworowski, the author of a segment for the New York Times, wrote, “The women examine the details -- the trifles -- of the suspect's life to discover a deeper meaning and in the end solve a mystery by exposing a tragedy.” The women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, are overlooked often in this play by the men. Hale, one of the male characters from the play states, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.” (Glaspell) This statement reveals how the men go straight to stereotypes with the women.
In “Trifles,” the gender roles are depicted clearly through the characters. The men: the Sheriff, the County Attorney, and Mr. Hale, are
Nevertheless, while using the play’s setting to first project the notion that men are superior to women in the society, the actual murder investigations depicted by the play goes to underline that indeed women are not inferior to men. Therefore, while placing the women’s intelligence over that of men, Trifles challenges the typical male-dominated detective story by deviating from the norm of men being superior, women only being good for the kitchen, and women paying attention to unimportant things like a jar of preserves busted. Although the men in the play, Trifles, are depicted most determined to resolve the murder by combing throughout the entire house to discover the clues related to the murder and the motive of the murder, women are keener in observing the small spaces they have been allowed to access. In the
INTRODUCTION Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the final installment of the Harry Potter series, wrapping up an epic fantasy based world story that surrounds the main protagonist Harry Potter and antagonist Voldemort. In the final book, Rowling is able to showcase her sense of feminism through female characters in the book.
Mark Twain, in 1888, stated that “both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.” Under the law during this time period, marriage was considered a completely different institution than what state it is known to be today. To have a marriage with several of the same controlling aspects during this day and age would be described as abusive. In Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, Glaspell demonstrates male dominance, female oppression as well as female insubordination during the early 1900’s effectively by revealing the unhealthy nature of the male and female character’s relationship.