Glaspell Trifles Essay

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Maggie Farmer Professor Beverly Mitchell Composition II 26 Sept 2012 Glaspell undoubtedly wrote Trifles in order to convey the message that men are no more important than women; had the men in the play seen the significance of the evidence before the women, the play would have a completely different message. “Both the conflict and its consequences change form as each critic sees a different shape in the shadows although most criticism discerns gender conflict in the indeterminate area between law and justice in Trifles.” (Glaspell -Review) We agree with the men in the beginning of the play; they represent the law and what is supposedly right. However, the men would have never thought that the women were capable of hiding, or finding anything that has to do with the crime of Mr. Wright's death. It is not very far into the play that we begin to notice the potential of the women. One of the most important lines in the play, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles” (Trifles 1339) is a representation of the message which Glaspell intended to portray. That line contains the first comment which the audience sees as negative toward women. This type of degradation toward women is displayed throughout the entire play. The aforementioned line also contains irony because what the men see as “trifles”, the women use to solve the murder of Mr. Wright. Glaspell creates more irony by using the men’s degrading remarks towards the women; for example, the county attorney makes the comment that “a sheriff’s wife is married to the law” (1344). The men assume that Mrs. Peters’ loyalty to her husband will keep her from withholding any information. What the men do not know is that she wants Mrs. Wright to be free; she has acquired a new loyalty to her gender. The time in which Trifles is set is substantial to the message shown in the play. It is set in 1916, a time

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