The Role of Women in Trifles and the Jewelry

The Role of Women in Trifles and The Jewelry
In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles, written around 1915, the role of women is superior to the men’s role and in Guy de Maupassant’s story, The Jewelry, the woman has an inferior role, and in the end, we find out that she was not a faithful wife. As the two stories are set at the turn of the twentieth century, the readers come to believe that women were not treated with much respect or thought to be intelligent; they were merely there to make children and clean their husband’s house. The role of women from Trifles and The Jewelry is meant to look genuine and equal, but at the end of both stories, we learn that women are not as innocent and passive as they were meant to be seen. According to the oxford dictionary, trifles is defined as a matter of little value or importance; ‘a thing of no moment’; a trivial, paltry, or insignificant affair. In the play written by Susan Glaspell, trifles refers to the places and things Mrs. Wright spent most of her time and energy, such as the kitchen and sewing room. The sheriff, county attorney, and Hale search around the Wright’s home, disregarding everything that John Wright would have spent the least amount of his time, and the cold hard emotionless facts, and where Mrs. Wright spent the majority of hers. The fact that Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale teamed up and discovered the motive and murderer, by merely looking at the whole house, including the kitchen and sewing room, where the men would not spend any time in looking for clues, shows the women’s ability to sympathize with Mrs. Wright, as in the county attorney’s line “Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs. Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too” (1128), and eventually solve the case. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters discover a dead canary that had been strangled in Mrs. Wright’s sewing kit. They then talk about how the dead canary relates to Mrs. Wright, as she was a beautiful happy woman who would sing to her husband, but got caged in and had her life strangled out of her, as a common symbol of women’s roles in society at that time. It proves to the women that Mrs. Wright did in fact murder her husband, as it was in the same manner as the deceased bird, almost for revenge of how Mr. Wright “took away” Mrs. Wright’s life. As in the way the men don’t search the whole house for clues, they do not ask Mrs. Hale or Mrs. Peters opinion on the murderer or motive, signifying that women were not well respected or thought to be intelligent in the time. In Mr. Hale’s response to the county attorney commenting that Mrs. Wright has more serious stuff to worry about than her broken jars of preserves, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles” (1128), signifies that he believes that Mrs. Wright will be more concerned with non-important issues, as her jars of preserves, than the seriousness of the situation she is in, making me believe that men really did view women as thoughtless, non-intelligent, lower members of society than men. In Guy de Maupassant’s story The Jewelry, the role of women is drastically different than that of Trifles. The story depicts, what Mr. Lantin believes as fake jewelry, belonging to his wife, and the hatred he has for it. When his wife passes, he comes to find out that the jewelry is in fact real and is worth a fortune, while acknowledging that Mrs. Lantin had 1 or more other lovers in order to get the expensive jewelry. Mrs. Lantin, her jewelry, and cheating nature has a far bigger role than that of Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Hale, and Mrs. Peters, even though Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters were intelligent and open enough to solve a murder. Mrs. Lantin is looked to be a strong, independent woman in The Jewelry. The fact that she was cheating on her husband, but at the same time was able to love and dote on him, and provide for them financially, even though the source of the money is kept secret, proves that Maupassant thought highly of women, as in women having an equal role to men in society. Towards the end of the story, Mr. Lantin is shown as a greedy fool who gets rich but is not happy in his new marriage, as his new wife treats him badly, as in the last line, “Six months after he married again. His second wife was the most upright of spouses, but had a terrible temper. She made his life very miserable” (94, 76-77). Mrs. Lantin is obviously very intelligent to have been able to keep her affairs secret and not raising any concern for her husband. She loves jewelry and did what she needed to be able to have the best. In the line “One of the clerks rushed out to laugh at his ease; another kept blowing his nose as hard as he could” (94, 57-58), proves that even the other men in the story thought Mr. Lantin was a fool. Alternatively, the role of women in Trifles and The Jewelry, are in some ways similar. In the play and the story, both set around the turn of the twentieth century, the role of women are shown as respectful, loyal, innocent, insignificant (except for being a wife and mother), and not very intelligent. In Trifles, the trustworthy opinion of women is shown in the line after the sheriff asks the county attorney if he would like to see what Mrs. Peters has taken from the house to bring to Mrs. Wright. “Oh, I guess they’re not very dangerous things the ladies have picked out. No, Mrs. Peters doesn’t need supervising” (1143). Also, the men actually say out loud that women are always only worrying about trifles, proving that nothing women do is important or devious. In The Jewelry, Mrs. Lantin is originally shown as a loving, careful wife, but ends up cheating on her husband. Just as in the history of the United States, during this time, women were taught to act a certain way, talk a certain way, and be passive and put their husbands above them. But deep down, women back then aren’t much different from woman today; modern women just don’t hide their real character anymore. The stories we have read in class show women being very mysterious. We automatically tend to believe that they are good at heart, but a deeper look into a particular aspect, women are shown to be very aggressive in bettering their own life. In modern society, men and women are almost equal, as in the workplace, at home, and intelligence. Back when these stories were written, women were seen as less inferior, but I believe that stories such as these really opened up people’s eyes and had an impact in making women’s roles in society what they are today.