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Essay on gender roles in trifles
Roles of women in trifles
Roles of women in trifles
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Last night, on September 12th, by 1337 Elington drive, Ms.Adela Strangeworth’s roses were supposedly vandalized by an unknown towns person. There has been speculation as to why a towns person vandalized Ms.Adela Strangeworth’s roses. Townspeople have recently called out Ms. Strangeworth for harassment in the form of letters that she sent them anonymously, and townsperson angered by Ms.Strangeworth’s letters most likely ruined her flowers. The roses were allegedly cut down with a knife or a similar sharp object and damaged by a lot of force. A few hours after Ms.Adela Strangeworth reported the incident, most townspeople were aloof about the matter, while others were sympathetic.
Previously Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s loyal wife, had been hard stuck on the idea that the law was just and served justice fairly. After the women find evidence that could convict Mrs. Wright and piecing the story together of her motive, the men begin to return and Glaspell writes, “Suddenly MRS. PETERS throws back quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing. It is too big. She opens box, starts to take bird out, cannot touch it, goes to pieces, stands there helpless.
Since Mrs. Wright does not have any children, this canary almost replaces this aspect that she is missing. The death of her almost “child figure” would lead Mrs. Wright to eventually murder her husband, the same way as her bird was killed. The women use this secret evidence as a way to side with the woman, even Mrs. Peters who is deemed to be “married to law” eventually sides with Mrs. Wright. This is an example of situational irony because the sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peters, begins to secretly tamper and drift the case away from the truth Therefore, the irony the authors use helps to highlight the womens rebellious nature throughout these
In Susan Glaspell’s short story, A Jury of her Peers, Mrs. Peters is torn between siding with her husband, the sheriff, or Mrs. Hale, a fellow woman in town. Although Mr. Peters is pressuring her to keep a look out for something that will help convict Minnie Foster for the murder of her husband, Mrs. Hale is also putting pressure on her to stick up for her own kind, accentuating the commonalities the women share. Mrs. Hale is not the most polite of women, rifling through Minnie’s things as the men search the house for clues, yet the men are far ruder in their comb of the place, constantly generalizing women and putting them down as a whole. Ultimately, Mrs. Peters instinctively unites with Mrs. Hale upon discovering the throttled canary in order to avoid condemning a woman whose shoes she has walked in.
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 men of the group, much like John in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” consider themselves more capable than the women and refuse to consider Mrs. Wright as anything other than irrational. The men leave the women to their “trifles” on the first floor, where they discover a broken bird cage, and the bird’s body, broken, carefully wrapped in a small, decorative box. They realize that Mr. Wright had wrung the neck of his wife’s beloved bird and broken its cage. Mrs. Wright, once known for her cheerfulness and beautiful singing, she stopped singing when she encountered Mr. Wright. Just like he did with the bird, Mr. Wright choked the life out of his wife until, finally, Mrs. Wright literally choked the life out of her husband.
Wright it is easy to tell that she is not at all upset about her husband’s death. When being asked about the situation she “laughed and pleated her skirt” (4). Mrs. Wright is compared to a bird that is found later in the story. The bird was found in a pretty box with marks around its neck. Hale and Peters say that the death of her bird would have been her motive if she actually was her husband’s murderer, but the author utilizes the bird and its broken cage to be a comparison to Mrs. Wright’s life.
The plays, "Trifles" by Susan Glasspell and "A Doll 's house" by Henrick Ibsen portray the way women were treated throughout the nineteenth century using the literary tool of symbolism. In Susan Glaspell 's "Trifles" she uses the bird cage and the dead bird to present the role and life of women in marriage and society, whereas Henrik Ibsen uses the dollhouse as a way for the reader to recognize the plays main similarities in the treatment of women. Even though the women in these plays share different lifestyles, they all face the same issues in their lives. In "trifles" Mr. And Mrs. Wright 's relationship can be described as abusive and lifeless.
Minnie’s quilt, the dead bird and its cage, and the kitchen show that living in a man’s world is not easy. In the end, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale recognize that they too have experienced the same loneliness and mistreatment that led Mrs. Wright to murder her husband. The men don't value the women in this story and they don't see them as being very intelligent either. It is for this reason “A jury of her peers” is created. Peers being the women themselves as they stand up, united against the subjugation they have all experienced.
(18)The men are not concerned that the women would hide anything from them because they consider women to be inferior. The men consider themselves superior, that they deserve the utmost respect, and that they should come first. For example, this belief is reflected when the men walk in the house like they own it and don't have any regard for anyone else. The women are tired of the mistreatment and finally stand up for themselves, by hiding evidence from the men on multiple occasions. They also stand up for each other, like when they didn't tell the men about the bird, which would prove that Mrs. Wright is
They both conclude that someone was rough with the empty birdcage. Immediately afterward, Mrs. Hale comments on the men’s progress to find evidence, saying, “’I wish if they’re going to find any evidence they’d be about it’” (Glaspell 1416). Mrs. Hale’s remark is ironic because her current conversation about the birdcage’s door hinge is indirect evidence, yet she is growing impatient with the men’s attempts to discover any solid evidence. A little later on, Mrs. Hale relates the idea of a bird to Mrs. Wright by saying, “’she was kind of like a bird herself.’”
The women began to pity Mrs. Wright as they knew her before she married to Mr. Wright. The females felt pity, where the men just accessed the situation at hand. After the women examine the empty bird cage they remember the way that Mrs. Wright use to sing and compared her to her former self as Minnie Foster. “Trifles,” introduced the masculinity here from the Sheriff’s side instantly putting his instinct into saying that there was a murder that happened at the farmhouse, was caused by Mrs. Wright without any hesitation. He didn’t look into the sadness, or let the depressing home get to him as much as what his intentions and his well-being come into play before his
It was two o’clock when Nick and I stepped off the train. I had invited him along to meet my mistress, Myrtle Wilson, whose husband was simpleminded enough to believe that she was simply going to see her Sister here in New York. I planned to take all of us to the apartment I rent for my excursions involving my affairs, where we could spend a good time together and have some whiskey, and I could get away from my wife Daisy. Sure she had money, and class, and looks, but Myrtle had a certain air about her that set her apart, elicited some exuberant excitement that Daisy just wasn’t giving me.
(kicks his foot against the pans under the sink) Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?” (Meyer 1389). In an ironic turn, the audience knows that the women have solved the murder mystery while the men remain oblivious of the truth because of their assumptions. The two women end up identifying with Minnie Wright’s abuse at the hands of her husband and feel the murder was justified. They then conspire to conceal the truth from their ignorant husbands and the County Attorney.
The concept of Trifles that I wanted to explore was this feeling of being trapped. Because I wanted to do being trapped as my concept I knew from the start that I wouldn't need very many set pieces because they would clutter and distract people from the message that I was trying to display through my set. So I decided to go with the bare necessities that this show needed to function. I wanted to explore an environment in which someone is trapped because the character mrs. Wright has been trapped for a very long time in a marriage that has gone far past South.