Susanne Glaspell's Trifles

Trifles by Susanne Glaspell focuses on morality and justice. But if you dig a little deeper into the play it shows the roles of men and women in society during that time, along with the effects of loneliness and revenge. Minnie symbolized a caged bird that is forced to hide her beauty, not to sing, and is isolated from the community. Glaspell used the bird cage to signify that Minnie had very limited space to do as she pleased. Her husband took away her femininity; the pretty dresses she used to wear, her singing, etc. He caged her in the house and took away all the things she loved. The idea of patriarchy is present throughout the play. It was an extremely common concept that was widely accepted back then, it may not have been called sexism, but the …show more content…
A woman’s only place is in the home and raising the children. (Patriarchy describes a general structure in which men have power over women. They are the head of the family unit, leader of social groups, and heads of government.) People still held onto their traditional beliefs that the women can’t contribute to anything in society aside from household duties. The women are disregarded as unimportant trifles. Mr. Henderson’s and the other men’s biggest mistake was assuming the women’s identity came solely from the relations to men, instead of from the individual qualities as females. When Minnie murdered her husband it was the ultimate rejection of her husbands imposed identity and state of being. Aside from Minnie Wright the women of the play had no first names. They took their husbands names which is a very important statement imposed by the author. The men belittled and doubted the abilities of the women. They believed that the women were too small minded and flighty to worry about important things like the investigation. When in the end it was the women who found the motive, but decided to keep it from the