Susan Glaspell's Work Is a Essay

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How -- she -- did -- change."(Glaspell) the second sense of the play's title becomes obvious: there is no place in the male world of overt action for women's fragility and sensibility, symbolized by the singing bird. The two wives intuitively understand that Mrs. Wright's husband could not understand or like "a thing that sang": "No, Wright wouldn't like the bird -- a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too."(Glaspell) Thus, men appear here as insensible and devoid of understanding outside the practical purposes.

The play thus emphasizes the importance of the neglected "trifles" of the women's inner lives, which seem unimportant, as they produce no obvious effect on the outer reality. John Wright is described as a good man through the eyes of society, but the women intuitively perceive his coldness and heartlessness, which for them is equal to murder: "Yes -- good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him -- [Shivers.] Like a raw wind that gets to the bone."(Glaspell) Wright performs well in society, but the women understand the chilling, murdering effect such a man would have on the joy of life. The women's experience is thus seen almost as a common block: all go through a "different kind of the same thing': "I know how things can be -- for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things -- it's all just a different kind of the same thing."(Glaspell) Thus, the division of the two worlds, the masculine and the feminine appears to be irreconcilable, as the many men have yet to understand the subtleties of life.

The women triumph in the end, as they solve the mystery of the crime through their intuition and their sensible perception of reality.

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The trifle in this murder case turns out to be the main clue to its solving. While the men conclude through their investigations that Mrs. Wright is indeed guilty, they fail to understand why because they are only aware of the raw facts. At the end, the men comment once more on the women's preoccupation with trifles: "Well, Henry, at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to -- what is it you call it, ladies?"(Glaspell) However, Glaspell's irony here is obvious: despite their commentaries, the men are in this case ignorant of the real state of things. The last line of the play emphasizes the irony: the men are ignorant not only of the case, but they fail to understand the women as well:

We call it -- knot it, Mr. Henderson."(Glaspell) the author thus proves that reality is not only factual, and that the sensibility of women has a crucial role in society.

Thus, Glaspell's Trifles reasserts the opposition between the female world of sensibility and the male world of overt action, concluding that men's infatuation with their 'important' roles in society is often a mistaken assumption. The "trifles" the women are concerned with can be many times crucial clues for knowing the truth. The significance of the play resides in the enlightening effect it has on the main differences between the two sexes.

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