What Is The Oppression Of Women In The Play Trifles

Gender Inequality And Women’s Oppression in Patriarchal Society.
In today’s society, gender equality is a concept that everyone deserves; however, in the past, this concept did not exist. With gender inequality comes oppression of many types for women living under patriarchal society. Patriarchal system prioritizes male and belittles female in almost every aspects of life. Women live stifled lives under men’s control and suffer with oppressions as a result. Many works of literature deal with the concept gender inequality and its influences on women in society. Susan Glaspell successfully uses settings and female characters to convey the roles of women and their oppressions in the play “Trifles”. Her play tells an ironic story of a crime being
When “Trifles” was published, women had no rights to vote, to serve on juries in most of the United States. The law then abandoned women to have a legal voice due to the scale of values being different between men and women in the society. Glaspell uses her female characters to ironically critique the structure of society about how it engenders and denies women legal representation in politic. In “Trifles”, during the investigation of a crime, the presence of the two women does not mean they join the other men to solve the crime; however, they are ones who discover the motive behind the crime. In Rebecca’s analysis, she says, “just at this period of time, the men in the play consider themselves intellectually superior in their attempt to solve the murder mystery. They do not “give” the two women the “right to vote” by asking their opinion or input into the investigation.” While the men focused on the big picture and immediately ignore the kitchen to “search for clues in the barn, the bedroom, in higher spheres – upstairs.” (Glaspell), the two wives are left in the kitchen, and they find clues about life in the Wright household. Noticeably, Glaspell uses the kitchen as the main setting to emphasize the value system of attitudes toward the genders. The kitchen had always been viewed as the women domain,
Women in the patriarchal society are usually victims being mentally oppressed and isolated in marriage. Glaspell has shown us, through the settings, a number of causes that builds up to Mrs. Wright’s crime of murdering her husband. As Karen Alkalay-Gut expresses, “Murder and Marriage: Another Look at Trifles”, she claims that women are trapped by a social system that may lead them into crime and punishes them when they are forced to commit it. All in all, Minnie is “doubly” isolated due to the reason of the isolation of Iowa and her isolation within the house.” According to Mrs. Hal’s words, “We live close together and live far apart.” (Glaspell). This physical setting represents the fearful isolation of a family as a unit of society. Not only women were neglected and unprotected by law, isolation in place made it worse for them when it came to pressure of oppression caused by such authoritarian husband. Before marriage, Minnie Foster is depicted to be cheerful, lively and sociable with an interest in singing. However, her life turns to a different page after being married to John Wright, who represents characteristics of men from patriarchy society. Mhayya describes: “Although the spatial division is a convention in the patriarchal society, John makes this segregation stricter.” Mrs. Wright was imprisoned to her farmhouse