Stereotypes In Trifles

For many years society has categorized men and women in several different ways. During this contextual essay analysis essay I will be discussing the stereotypes of women in the story of “trifles”. The most important stereotype introduced in this play is that women are lesser creatures than men--that they are not capable of thinking as competently as their male counterparts. The men allow this stereotype to interfere with the investigation as they continually comment on the silliness of their conversation. We will be looking at the different ways the women were treated vs the men and how they both dealt with things throughout the story.

Throughout this play, you can identify diverse differences in how women are viewed and how they truly
The opposition is disproved when the men slowly realize that chores are not done, dishes are not washed, cooking is not going on, and towels are not clean. Not only is this in the play, but also real life. Men expect the women to do all of their chores even if it is hardly noticeable. In the story, the men’s failure to recognize the small details that must be related to the murder tells how men value themselves not only in the story but real life too. By not being so emotional the women successfully lead the men into the answer to the murder case, but unfortunately for the men they laughed and could not take the women seriously enough. The messy kitchen, the quilt, the Birdcage, the dead canary, and other things and parts of the house were considered as trifles by the men, which were given life and a purpose by the women. This suggests that women need more trustworthiness. The small details suggested by the title of the play itself is comparable to women in a society today and how they are taken for granted by men because they were regarded as small creatures and nothing but to serve the men and to follow them around. Lastly, another binary opposition that could be found in the play is the hierarchy of truth and lie between everyone. The intentional act of women to conceal the evidence from their husbands is recognition of the fact that the state's rank in society could be reversed. For the greater of some people, for the good of Mrs. Wright whom they had known suffered abuse emotionally from her husband. It is their way of fighting against the societal-recognized statuses of men and women. They wanted to reverse the two statuses given by society and giving answers and justification through figuring out the different pieces of evidence and marks of abuse and