Susan Glaspell's Trifles

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Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, is an interesting play written in the early 1900’s concerning the issues of society during that time. Susan Glaspell today is recognized as a particularly feminist writer and her feministic views are evident in the play Trifles. In the play, Mr. Wright is discovered dead in the bedroom and the males of the community attempting to solve who murdered him, or how he died. According to Mrs. Wright, she was sleeping when the death occurred. The males quickly dismiss their wives when they try to help, insinuating that they are the only one’s who can solve the crime. As the plot unfolds, we begin to understand the message that is trying to be portrayed. Trifles is about women’s role in society and how it is of much lesser importance than the men’s. During the time Susan…show more content…
The play very clearly goes against societal norms when the women keep getting involved with “a man’s job”. Even more so, they actually hide evidence that it was Mrs. Wright who killed her husband. Glaspell wrote the play with the women defying the norms because that’s how she felt about society. Soon after the play was written women obtained the right to vote and society began to change. Women were becoming more important in society, having more of a role than just staying at home with the kids, and the males started to change their minds about females. It is important that the play was written just before the women’s rights movement because the audience would begin to think more about why women were unequal in society. The women who read or viewed the play would experience somewhat of a catharsis when it ended. Since the play is evidently about a male-dominated society, and women prevail in finding the person who committed the crime, the female audience would be thrilled. Trifles allowed the women of the time to achieve a justice in a society that was not unjust toward

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