Trifles by Susan Glaspell Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Trifles by Susan Glaspell - Essay Example Trifles, I believe, is feminist in the most true sense of that word: it does not seek to speak only about injustice or the place of women in a society which undervalues their importance; it goes deeper than this. Glaspell seeks to understand and, consequently, show how attitudes and perspectives shape these social constructs, and thus, when individuals are appreciated or cheapened in particular societal contexts. To elaborate on this point, consider the lines when the women decide to protect Mrs. Wright. Glaspell wants to focus upon the minds of the individuals involved; although some would like to interpret the women’s actions (to protect Mrs. Wright) as motivated by a shared gender or social status, the truth of their decision lies in what Mrs. Peters succinctly summarized by â€Å"the law is law†. That is, her motivation for helping Mrs. Wright does not consist of purely traditional feminist notions of womanhood, but of a concern for truth and objectivity. The women find evidence at Mrs. Wright’s home, gathered with an open-mind and interpreted fairly. When law enforcement—the Sherriff and the County Attorney—interpret this same evidence, they will do so differently. This, as Glaspell wishes to suggest, is a matter of epistemological difference, and not of the metaphysical difference which many feminists like to suppose exists between the different realm s of male and female. Centrally, Trifles is a work centered around the two separate stories, one male and one female, combined into one in the setting of a commonplace American location. To illustrate the separate perspectives between the different genders involved in the place, following the murder, the law enforcement, male-oriented crowd sees the scene as a place where a grievous crime was committed, whereas the female-oriented crowd sees the scene as a home, or as somewhere that they