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Women In Trifles And The Bacchae

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Comparative Analysis: Don’t Mess with a Women In Susan Glaspell’s one-act play “Trifles” and Euripides ancient Greek tragedy “The Bacchae” the treatment of women can be said to be enslaved by men. In 405 B.C. (The Bacchae) and the early 1900’s (Trifles) was dominated merely by men. Joan Connelly, author of Portrait of a Priestess, described women of little or no importance and lacked the influence over political, religious or cultural views in the Greek period. Glaspell and Euripides brings awareness on the treatment of women using portrait of women and imagery. The comparison on the treatment of women in Trifles and The Bacchae show both authors perspective towards women. Both authors perspective towards women can be seen throughout the …show more content…

Mr. Hale’s statement, “women are used to worrying about trifles”, downgrades the daily task of the importance of women’s housekeeping (844). The statement shows the lack of knowledge that men have towards women and believe that women agonize over insignificant things. County Attorney said “Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies”, is a degrading comment towards Minnie’s lack of housekeeping (844). The image of Minnie’s messy house can be used to show her emotional position. This comment shows the lack of respect and inequality from the men. In the Bacchae, Euripides shows imagery through the strength of the women. The messenger states “their bodies were stripped off faster than you could wink your royal eye… those fountains which the god had made for them” shows men view women as weak and without power of a God women lacks the strength to defeat men (15) The treatment of women in Ancient Greek and the early 1900’s can be compared in Trifles and The Bacchae. Glaspell’s writing of women’s inequality was the beginning of women’s liberation. The lack of men’s concern for women’s trifles lead them to ignore what happened to John Wright. In the Bacchae, Euripides believed that women and men should be equal and the story tells of rebellion of women against society. I believe Euripides was celebrating the equality of women. The insignificance of women brings the awareness of inequality for

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In Euripides’s The Bacchae and in William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, I found the gender roles in these particular plays to be very interesting because this was my first exposure to cross-dressing in works of literature. In The Bacchae, women play a huge role because women are often portrayed as feminine and inferior in many past works, however, in The Bacchae, the women of Thebes decide to rebel against the men and join the Greek God of grape harvesting, wine, fertility, and partying, in the woods. The women were manipulated by Dionysus and were turned into maenads because they joined Dionysus and rejected the norms for women, to stay in their place and they all went from the first world they were living in, Thebes, to the second world,

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