Susan Glaspell's Trifles

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Susan Glaspell's Trifles is a play about the effect of gender differences on perceptions of duty, law, and justice. Trifles was a play that took place in the 1900’s written by Susan Glaspell (1876-1948). Glaspell attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa where she then graduated with a Ph. D. in philosophy. She became a journalist at the Des Moines Daily News where she reported the murder case of John Hossack, a man who was murdered and his wife was committed. Glaspell then turned the play into a short story titled “A Jury of Her Peers”. Trifles has many meanings that associate with it. In the play trifle is used as something of little importance or value. For example, Mrs. Wright was more concerned for her jam that would freeze in the winter than her dead husband in the other room. Another example, the men only searched the house where the man dominated.

First, during that time a women’s duty was based on social status. If the woman was not married at the time she would have to work in jobs such as, nursing, teaching, or in factories. However, if the women were to be married then it was her duty to take care of the house as in cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children. In the 1900’s many obstacles came between the men and women. For
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Women did not have the right to vote at that time. Susan Glaspell was able to proceed with her career as a playwright and actress because of her social status she acquired when she married Cook. No one would take them seriously, just a laughing matter. For example, the irony in the play trifles is when, the farmer Mr. Hale, the county attorney Mr. Henderson, and sheriff Mr. Peters did not search the places where Minnie spent most of her time such as, the kitchen. They only spent their time looking in places where Mr. Wright was in control. Not realizing that kitchen is where the evidence was at. The only place in the house that women was in charge

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