Susan Glaspell's Trifles: Early Twentieth Century

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Lauren Passmore Julie Faulkner Comp 2 2 December 2014 Sexism Exists In today’s world, it is not unusual for women to commit crimes, work crime cases or even solve them. During the time period that Trifles by Susan Glaspell was written women were not thought capable of doing such things. Susan Glaspell uses Minnie Wright’s character to display the role of women in the early twentieth century. Glaspell was very aware and active when dealing with feminism issues. Glaspell was influenced by getting to work on a report of a man who was killed in his sleep in Warren County, Iowa (MidnightAssassin para 2). The women were not given a task due to the fact that women worry themselves over un-important things, or trifles as the men believe. Merriam Webster’s…show more content…
Wright, but it is the criticizing that the men have towards the women that lie in the play. “Trifles dramatizes women acting decisively in response to men’s condescension and sex role stereotyping both at home and in courts of law” (Fisher p. 289). The men are bias toward Mr. Wright because of the way Mrs. Wright portrayed herself. The men do not hesitate to quickly criticize Mrs. Wright for not having her house clean and tidy like they expect it to be. “Mr. Henderson can only conclude that Minnie Wright was “not much of a housekeeper,” but the women read the scene differently (Makowsky para 20). As Mr. Henderson said, “Oh here is a nice mess”, the women looked to find that Mrs. Wright’s fruit she had canned was frozen (Glaspell 598). Mrs. Wright had been worried about her fruit freezing more so than the death of her husband. Mrs. Hale soon discovers while going through Mrs. Wright’s belongings, a box with sewing material in it, or so she thinks. As she opens the box and expects to find scissors, she finds the clue that will open up multiple opportunities to solving the case. Although the men view the actions of the women as that of little intelligence, they are actually solving the case, unlike the

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