Similarities Between Of Mice And Men And Trifles

It has been said that all men are created equal, and while this idea is important, it is also important to note that all humans are created equal, though they may not be treated as such. In both John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Susan Glaspell’s Trifles, women are treated as though they are less important than men. Both pieces of literature illustrate the idea that men have more necessary roles in society, and that women don’t deserve the same amount of respect.

In both Of Mice and Men and Trifles female characters are spoken to with contempt. In Of Mice and Men George and Lennie are getting settled in the bunk house when Curley’s wife enters, supposedly looking for her husband. George quickly attempts to disregard her and make her leave, …show more content…
This perhaps gives the men a sense of importance, and it may be why they treat women as their inferiors. In Trifles before the men go off to look for clues as to who committed a murder, the county attorney says, “Keep an eye out for anything that might be of use to us.” (5). From this, the reader can assume that the county attorney does not believe that the women will find substantial evidence. It is possible that the county attorney believes that the women are going to spend the entire time worrying over trifles instead of helping. While he and the other men go off to do their duties, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters do keep an eye out for useful bits of information, and they end up finding enough to solve a murder. When the men return to where the women are, it is to find the women discussing the quilt Mrs. Wright had begun to make. The sheriff is astounded that the women had noticed such a thing in the situation at hand. Unbeknownst to him, the state of the quilt is, in fact, important. Though in the hands of a woman, that quilt was seen as another silly trifle. The men more than likely assumed anything the women talked about was petty gossip that had no benefit to the case, a generalization that hurt the men greatly. The men, however, don’t find enough evidence to solve anything. They mock the women for worrying over trifles, but because they themselves didn’t worry over trifles in the case of investigating a …show more content…
Whenever she is in the room, she is immediately dismissed as a nuisance that the men have to deal with far too often. The reason the men are forced to be around her is because of her husband, Curley. It is interesting to note that Curley’s wife is not given a name, instead being referred to as the wife of an unpleasant man that no one could stand up to. Being called Curley’s wife may show that she is seen as nothing more than the property of Curley. Because her gender is female, her body is what is noticed first, and then her marital status. The fact that no main male character ever asks what her name is in the novella is another important concept. Curley’s wife wasn’t even given the common courtesy of a name, because why would she? All that matters is that she is married to the boss’s son. It is shown that Curley’s wife isn’t of any importance to George, aside from the fact that she could get he and Lennie fired. Some may say that throughout the novella Curley’s wife isn’t actually important. However, George took the time to learn everyone else’s name, despite how important they may or may not be to