Preview

Gender In The Play Trifles

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
294 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Gender In The Play Trifles
In the play Trifles gender plays a huge part. When the detectives were looking for evidence or "motives" of why Mrs. Wright killed her husband they often times belittled the women. As the women searched for the small things that contributed to Mr. Wright's death the men were looking at the bigger picture. In the end because the men brushed the women off, not taking into consideration their advice, the women ended up finding the real motive while the detectives totally missed it. In the play Fences gender roles also evident because of the way Rose is treated by her husband. Troy cheats on her with a women named Alberta and seems to ignore the fact that she is loyal to him and takes care of home. After Alberta dies giving birth to their child

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the play “Triffles”, written by Susan Glasspell, the denouement in the plot is satisfying and provides closure to the narrative. Tension is created between the male and female characters with use of dialogue. The dialogue has many instances throughout the play of demeaning and derogatory comments from the male characters directed toward the female characters. This sets up the motive for a silent defiance by the women. In the end, the women choose to conspire against the men and conceal evidence from them.…

    • 200 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Brown, Elke. "Gender in Trifles." McClinton-Temple, Jennifer ed. Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2011. Bloom 's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= ETL0475&SingleRecord=True (accessed April 10, 2012).…

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Eng15 Fences

    • 1382 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The play Fences by August Wilson revolves around the front yard of the main characters Troy and Rose Maxson between the years 1957 and 1965. Rose is a long, responsible mother, wife, and friend who tends to show forgiving and selfless character traits. Many of her words and actions also show that she is a strong and assertive yet tender woman. Her husband Troy, on the other hand, is pretty much her opposite. Troy’s character is very dominant. He is and imaginative and boastful person who mostly comes off as selfish and bitter. Within the eight years, which the play takes place, Rose and Troy find themselves in a tragedy. Troy’s character changes between Act I and Act II, however, both his and Rose’s character are responsible for the tragedy.…

    • 1382 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Since the 1900’s, women have struggled with gender roles in society that leaned more in favor of men. Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, reflects on this struggle by blatantly separating the ideas, opinions and actions of the men and women in the play. As the title Trifles suggests, the men in the play view the two women’s concerns as unimportant and frivolous in comparison to the “real” work the men have to do. Glaspell’s characterization of the sheriff, Henry Peters, the attorney, George Henderson, and the neighboring farmer, Mr. Hale, portrays them as typical men of the time who decide to take charge because, as men, that is their duty and only they know what can be done and how to go about discovering the truth. They only take along Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters to collect some things for Mrs. Wright, never taking a moment to think that from a woman’s perspective, the answer to the murder could be found.…

    • 1480 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The ways the movie She’s The Man is similar to the play Twelfth Night are both talk about gender roles and how it effects society. As shown, when Viola in She’s The Man…

    • 134 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1916, a woman’s place was in the kitchen. That is the setting for Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles. The set is described as gloomy with faded wallpaper. Glaspell is painting a picture of the life of the absent Minnie Wright. Throughout the play, the reader discovers, along with the female characters, that Minnie lived a lonely life of neglect and abuse. As this was written before the passing of the nineteenth amendment, women had little to no rights. According to Isabel Marcus, “Prior to the divorce-law reforms of the second half of the twentieth century, women seeking divorce from an abusive husband were required to demonstrate ongoing serious abuse before a court would grant a divorce on the grounds of cruelty.” Women were essentially considered…

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Female of the Species is written by Joanna Murray-Smith, and directed by Kate Cherry. The plot is inspired by an incident in 200 when feminist author Germaine Greer was held captive in her own home by a mentally unstable student. The play manipulates dramatic elements, particularly tension, symbols, and mood to create dramatic meaning.…

    • 401 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Society has created a set of norms and standards which imply that you are supposed to behave, dress, and do things based on your gender. However, Queer theorist, Judith Butler, does not agree with society. Instead, Butler believes that gender roles are not biologically constructed. Butler’s 1990 novel Gender Trouble, examines the extent to which gender and sexuality are performative. Butler’s concept of performative gender is depicted in Michael Chabon’s novel Summerland. The fantasy novel revolves around the protagonist, Ethan, and his friends, who all play baseball and must stop the Coyote from ending the world. In order to stop the trickster god Coyote, Ethan travels through Summerland with a small troupe of friends, playing baseball in…

    • 1195 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Trifles Gender Roles

    • 131 Words
    • 1 Page

    The play “Trifles” written by Susan Glaspell is based in the early 1900’s when it was typical for the masculine gender role to dominate the feminine role. The theme is of the play is power and domination over females during this time era. Upon analyzing this play, Mr. Hale and Mr. Peter’s are investigating the murder and they portray themselves as strong and determined, but in reality they are not as alert as the women are. In conclusion, the women figured out that Mrs. Wright murdered her husband by simply observing the house and finding the dead bird; the men were upstairs at the scene of the crime and could not figure it out. Men to this day still do not understand that sometimes the woman’s way of thinking is better!…

    • 131 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Trifles Feminist Analysis

    • 2287 Words
    • 10 Pages

    In the play, “Trifles,” Susan Glaspell demonstrates the inequality that occurs between men and women during the 20th century. From the opening scene, the two women are not given much attention unlike the men, until they are separated from them and become the main characters. Although the women are seen as inferior to men, they prove that they are much more capable as they are the ones who solve the case by thinking outside the box. They find the real motive behind Mrs. Wright’s action and are able to understand her doing because of the way women were treated back then. Even though both women decide to defend Mrs. Wright by hiding the evidence, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters sympathize with her, but for different reasons.…

    • 2287 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Women have been treated as lessors to men in the past, feminine equality is a new concept that has only been around for about a century. In both plays “Trifles” and “A Doll’s House” they address stereotypes of women during these time periods. “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell explores the mysterious death of Mr. Wright (Mrs. Wrights husband). As the play progresses the audience gets insight to Mrs. Wright’s life, and how Mr. Wright treated her. Mr. Wright was known to be a brash, and unruly man. The women in this play (Ms. Hale and Mrs. Peters) both know the kind of man Mr. Wright was, The men may have known this too, but the time period the play takes place in, domestic violence toward women was not highly looked into. The text “Portable Literature: Reading, Reacting. Writing” explains that Glaspell’s main force behind the play “Trifles” was to shed light on the treatment of women. The text states that “Women…

    • 1541 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Gender Twelfth Night

    • 1886 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Many of the social issues that were dominant during the Renaissance are present in William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night. The relationships between Viola/Cesairo and Olivia, Orsino and Viola/Cesairo and Antonio and Sebastian create an immense amount of tension for the characters and audience to deal with because, their relationships conflict with the dominant heteronormative ideology of the time. The heteronormative ideology consists of the belief that to be accepted into society a person must marry someone of the opposite gender as to follow the social norms and fulfill their social role.…

    • 1886 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Susan Glaspell’s Trifles is a play about a murder mystery that is loosely based on an actual murder case that the author covered while working as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News (Ben-Zvi 143). Since the play is written in 1916, a time when the boundaries between the private and public spheres are beginning to break down, it strongly reflects on the culture-bound notions of sex roles and gender. Back then, women are thought to be concerned about insignificant issues that hold little to no importance to the true work of society, also known as trifles, just as the title of the play suggests. In 2008, Ghost Ranch Productions, with director Pamela Walker, who plays Mrs. Wright herself, produces Trifles, a film adaptation of Glaspell’s famous play. Through the creative use of literary elements and some small alterations to the plot, dialogue, and setting, Walker effectively demonstrates the play’s major theme of gender differences in the film.…

    • 905 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever wondered; just how much can one person take from another? What amount of cruelty and abuse persuades the fury in a typically passive person to leap into aggressive action? Susan Glaspell's play Trifles shows us just how far one woman, Mrs. Wright, is pushed before she snaps. This is a classic tale of spousal abuse, based off of a true story, which was not too uncommon and almost expected back in the late nineteenth century. Back then women were controlled by their husbands and were seen as insignificant by all the men around them. In this play the women fight the patronizing and belittling society and join together to support another woman. During this time in history, "marital conflict, frequently including violence, was mostly taken for granted in many working-class communities; in itself, it was rarely sufficient to warrant communal censure." (Hammerton 155)…

    • 1700 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Twelfth Night Gender

    • 2474 Words
    • 10 Pages

    When thinking of what true love really is it is known that people have many different perspectives on its meaning. Love can be viewed as the physical attraction that one has to another, the desire that one has to be in another’s company, or the longing to have someone to love and be loved by. Shakespeare writes about love on many occasions within several of his romantic, comical, and dramatic plays. He uses many of his male characters to redefine what it means to be in love with a female, and to reveal to his audiences the drastic lengths that the males go to for their female counterparts. Shakespeare uses Antony from Antony and Cleopatra, as well as, Duke Orsino from Twelfth Night to demonstrate the subtle power that women had over men because…

    • 2474 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays