I personally love this piece. I read it a few times
throughout high school, but this is the first time I've gotten a chance to read
it since I began my college career. I found that as I was reading it this time
around, my focus changed: whereas in high school, my thoughts were mainly
focused on what I would do if I had been in Mrs. Peter and Mrs. Hale's
situation. This time, I found myself more focused on the men and what they were
doing throughout the play. The men stumbled around looking for some kind of
evidence, as the women are downstairs in the kitchen finding it all. Honestly,
the men come off to me as dumb asses. They
laugh and joke about the simplicity of women and how Mrs. Wright worries about
her preserves. The sheriff tells the county attorney that he is sure there is
no evidence in the kitchen, saying there is “nothing here but kitchen things.”
To me it seems that these men don’t understand women in the slightest. The two women, however, are aware that Mrs.
Wright would be spending a lot of her time in the kitchen and ended up examining
things that the men might labeled as “trifles”. Overall, I just found the male
characters in this piece to be rather laughable.
I found this piece comical as well. The men are dashing about looking for obvious evidence like Blue's Clues or something. And the women just look at what Mrs. Write usually did and found disturbances among them.
ReplyDeleteBut I also thought it was pretty upsetting. I mean this poor woman only had a bird and her husband probably killed it. By the information of the story it seemed like Mrs. Wright never had any fun. She probably picked all those berries, canned them, tended the fire, cooked, and made her blanket. She just needed that bird to be semi-okay.
I have never read "Trifles" before, but I loved it. I agree that I found the men to be complete idiots. All they do is make pointless or arrogant side comments. However, I think that allows the focus to be on Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that each character is a key component in their own way. Glaspell is sending a message to the reader and I think she uses each character effectively.
I agree that the men seem to be going about their investigation completely wrong; they were acting arrogant and unfocused. They didn't search the obvious areas that Mrs. Wright would have spent time in, and where she would have left evidence. However, in class today we were talking about how women were not even taken seriously as killers in this time period. Perhaps the men were not completely ignorant, but rather they knew that the search was futile as Mrs. Wright would be released regardless. The women, however, knew the pain that Mrs. Wright had been feeling and that she was very capable of committing this act.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the men in Trifles are quite naïve, especially when they look in places a man might hide evidence (like in the barn), even though Mrs. Wright is the suspected murderer. It is as if the men refuse to think a woman could commit a murderous crime. I believe that because Mrs. Wright is the suspected killer, the kitchen is one of the first places the men should have inspected for evidence. Although, like Kristi mentioned, women weren’t depicted as murderers in this time period. Because women weren’t often targeted as murders, I think it would be difficult for men in this time period to search a kitchen for the evidence of a murderer, after all, kitchens are typically related to comfort, not death. Analogously, I don’t believe I would call the men “dumb” or “idiot[ic],” but rather naïve because they underestimate the ability of Mrs. Wright—because she is a woman—to commit murder.
DeleteRachel, your comment is well thought out and well said. As a male, I do not feel demeaned by Glaspell's portrayal of men in "Trifles." I do, however, feel that her writing underscores how perception and interpretation is influenced by gender. It is interesting to see how a female writer portrays male characters. Likewise, it is equally interesting to see how a male writer portrays women. Surely this is no easy task in either case.
ReplyDelete