Analytical Essays: Themes of a Period: “Trifles”
Rubric Score: 3+
In this essay you have to prove why and how women were confined in the 1930s. This essay shows the ESLR of “Culturally Empowered” because it explains cultures of the 1930s and lifestyles. A strong point in my essay is that I am able to use outside quoting and information and apply it to the thesis. A weakness in my essay is that my conclusion doesn’t really give the essay a close. A new strategy I attempted to do is make more analogies and commentary that are complex and not basic. In the next essay, I plan is to keep using shorter concrete detail but with enough information to back up my thesis.
Important Trifles that were never needed in the End
“If absolute sovereignty is not necessary in a state, how comes it in a family?”(Mary Astell), this quote’s meaning has been supported for centuries. In Glaspell’s “Trifles”, Mrs. Wright kills her husband due to him practically taking her life away. A group of people then search her house to find any evidence or reasons to why the murder of Mr. Wright happens. Glaspell portrays women as imprisoned souls held captive in a man’s hand by the dialogue written in the play, symbolism of imprisonment. The whole play has strong evidence that dialogue resembling the 1930s shows how confined women are.
The conversations in the play with a man to a woman exemplify women as being weak and manipulative. By making fun of Mrs. Wright the Sheriff exclaims, “Well can you beat the woman? Held for murder and worrying about her preserves!” (Glaspell, 632). The Sheriff sarcastically exclaims beat the woman because he opinionates that women worry about their house and belongings but do not bother caring about what is happening to them. Women do not have to worry about the outside issues because they are confined in their homes by men. While searching around the house, the County Attorney jokes, “not much of a housekeeper would you say ladies?” (Glaspell, 633). The attorney knows that women in his time are usually isolated with the one job of housekeeping. Women are commonly housewives who stay home and take care of the house. The dialogue people have man to woman has a sense of symbolism, that is apparent in Mr. & Mrs. Wright.
Like a bird trapped in a cage and a cat that open the cage killing the bird, Mrs. Wright’s soul is slaughtered by Mr. Weight. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter go on in their trifles, when they talk about the bird Mrs. Hale explains to Mrs. Peters, “She used to sing. He killed that too.” (Glaspell, 638). Mr. Weight takes away the significant factors of Mrs. Wright that keep her life going. Doing only chores now for her everyday life, she hides her voice of singing. Symbolism comes into play with the sheriff and his wife when he remarks, “No, Mrs. Peters doesn’t need supervising. For that matter a sheriff’s wife is married to the law.” (Glaspell, 640). Because Mrs. Peters is married to the law, it is assumed that she will not deceive the law or commit crimes. Like the bird, Mrs. Peters is trapped and unable to be set free, while the Sheriff is the cat who wanders freely with no family moral law. Glaspell uses these symbols to depict how women are in the 1930s.
Although Mrs. Wright and the other women in the play used to be free, it is all take away by their husbands. Glaspell proves this in her technique and of dialogue and symbolism. In “Trifles” she depicts women as chained bird without right. Women cannot retaliate against their husbands in Glaspell’s description of Mrs. Wright. In 1930s silence is golden when it comes to women.
