Essay Example on Trifles: A Murder Mystery With Gender-Based Conflict

Introduction

Trifles by Susan Glaspell is a single act play with its setting in a little farmhouse. Actions in the play take place in a single day and satisfy the unity of Aristotle on a play taking place within twenty-four hours. The play foresees its focus on the duty of the women, by existing in a private, domestic, and female domain. Glaspell's play, Trifles, aside from presenting murder stories, has a gender-based social conflict in its center. In the play and the 21st century, women who commit murder evoke fear and challenge the societal construction of feminism in the society, their nature, restraint, and passivity (Goldscheider, 2013). In Trifles, the social and judicial boundaries of females overlap in the case of murder, where the persecution of women is shaped by the concepts of the society of how women should behave. In the 21st century, actual murder cases are influenced by socialism and feminism, as was the case in Susan Glaspell's, Trifles. This essay focuses on a comparison of gender roles in Glaspell's Trifles with gender roles in the 21st century by looking at how stereotypical gender differences affect how female characters behave according to socially constructed roles. The comparison will be made based on the concepts of; gender-based differences of perception, the question of truth and justice, and social boundaries.

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Gender-Based Differences of Perception

In Trifles, there is a gender-based world structured hierarchically, where the female's environment is subordinate and separate. Women have to be submissive and stay in their domestic roles managing their interior affairs while in the male's points of view; women are insignificant, hence, trifling. In the play, the County Attorney, Mr. Hale, and Mrs. Peters appear on the murder scene of John Wright. John Wright's wife, Minnie Wright, has been arrested, and as the males search for evidence in the house, women are left in the kitchen to collect some things ordered by Mrs. Wright from prison. The ladies find clues of murder motives in the kitchen as they gather those items. The concepts of differences in perception are evident both in the material and in the general senses (Lotz, 2014). The public male and the private female have been materialized in the house, stereotyping the female environment where the kitchen is the private part of the house where women settle while the other rooms are the public places where the men are freely snooping around, seeking for evidence.

In comparison to the 21st century, whenever formal guests are invited, women will always gather in the kitchen. The women's world and the men's world are different in terms of mental and physical expansion. The female's world seems small, with men and women keeping boundaries of their territories. While women sit in the kitchen and chat about insignificant things, men go surveying and making 'better' plans, as they wait to be served. The men in Trifles act outstanding and superior and are convinced that there is nothing remarkable in the kitchen, "nothing here but kitchen things" (Glaspell, 2011). They express their view about the kitchen and the women in general.

The Question of Truth and Justice

In the 21st-century crime cases, most times murderers are arrested based on forensic evidence like a drop of blood, DNA analysis or a print in the car tires. Whenever the case is solved, it is usually the murderer slipping and ending up in prison. In most crime stories, methods of investigation are distinct. Female detectives generally apply the techniques of disguising themselves and their logic to chase after criminals, but whenever masculine force is needed, they call the police for assistance. This is also true for Trifles, where the concept of the female sphere determines female character. Their methods of solving issues involve stereotypical feminine strategies which are used by Mrs. Hales and Mrs. Peters, such as "chatting about unimportant things" (Glaspell, 2011). Acting in disguise provides female detectives to use their specialized talents in fetching out the truth. The detective characters in the 21st century and the kitchen experiences of Mrs Hales and Mrs Peters, represent the time between two extremes of gender spheres, where females methods of crime identification are radical and incomprehensible because they are operating outside the culturally accepted framework, and yet their distinct qualities, grants them the unique insights on truth and justice, based on their intuitive, conservation and observant nature (Taylor, 2013). Through culturally acquired modes of behavior, people tend to look at female judges and interpret their meanings of pieces of evidence in a feminine way. The society has a critical point of view when it comes to truth and justice. In as much as women have been given the chances to solve cases related to crime in the 21st century, their judgments are hardly met with enough seriousness since most people still tend to think, males are better (Taylor, 2013). This has led to women discovering their closed system of gender roles and acting to defend their positions at any cost.

Social Boundaries

In the play, the men are convinced that the women could not possibly find evidence on the murder. To seem polite in the 21st century, most men ask women unimportant questions to appear gracious and get off to the next thing, and women feel intimidated by the quality of their answers in men's presence (Weiten, Dunn & Hammer, 2014). In Trifles, we see the County Attorney inquiring about the bird, but he does not suspect that there could be anything or any clue of evidence. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters do not know how to answer questions addressed to them by the Attorney since they feel their answers might not be that important (Glaspell, 2011). They are scared of what could happen if the Sheriff found out about the bird. Maybe the Sheriff would dismiss their discovery as a woman's idea, or perhaps an irrelevant concept. As Mrs. Peters points it out, "it's a good thing that the men did not hear us, wouldn't they laugh; getting stirred up about a little thing like a dead canary. As if that could have anything to do with, wouldn't they laugh"(Glaspell, 2011). It seems that there is no chance of the men taking women seriously. Naturally, men will always think of women as masters of nothing else other than childcare and kitchen staff. Men do not tend to believe that women can think of anything else of more importance. The way women communicate and how men communicate has locked both genders in stereotypes, and of sacred rule, which cannot be altered.

Conclusion

In the year we live in and the Trifles world, both men and women are striving to be understood. The good and the wrong perspectives have been influenced by our societal upbringings, actual laws, and customs, and the traditions of our communities. Stereotypes frame our existence. In the play Trifles, when women like Minnie Wright act from their emotions and men seek for visible evidence, it only shows how stereotyped their roles are. This is also the case in the contemporary world when women feel intimidated by men in almost all aspects of life. Feminists in the 21st century are fighting for their rights based on being treated as inferiors and being associated with a lack of intellects. By being aware of their existence, women can get rid of each stereotype, one at a time.

References

Glaspell, S. (2011). Plays. GUTENBERG EBOOK. Retrieved from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10623/10623-h/10623-h.htm#TRIFLES

Goldscheider, F. K. (2013). Family relationships and life course strategies for the 21st century. In The Family on the Threshold of the 21st Century (pp. 85-98). Psychology Press. Retrieved from https://www.sns.se/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/families-in-the-21st-century-webb.pdf

Lotz, A. D. (2014). Cable guys: Television and masculinities in the 21st century. NYU Press. Retrieved from https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/4087/1441

Taylor, C. (2013). Black religious intellectuals: The fight for equality from Jim Crow to the 21st century. Routledge. Retrieved from https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-now/african-american-religious-leadership-and-civil-rights-movement

Weiten, W., Dunn, D. S., & Hammer, E. Y. (2014). Psychology applied to modern life: Adjustment in the 21st century. Cengage Learning. Retrieved from https://www.chegg.com/textbooks/psychology-applied-to-modern-life-11th-edition-9781285459950-1285459954