Susan Glaspell Research Paper
Christian Camargo
Susan Glaspell: A Woman Committed to Every Woman
In the process of women’s emancipation as autonomous entities in a male-dominated society, literature, as the powerful mean of conversion that it is, has been one of their most strong weapons to successfully launch their critical, social comments against the oppression of their male counterparts. Female writing emerges out of this struggle to be acknowledged today as a separate category of scholarly interest. Among many important female authors in English Literature, Susan Glaspell “is now widely recognized”, and studied “as one of the most influential” (Black).
Glaspell was born July 1, 1876, in Davenport, Iowa, although other sources cite her birth year as 1882. She was a fertile novelist and productive short story writer with thirteen plays, fourteen novels, and more than fifty essays, articles, and short stories to her credit. Nevertheless, it is as a playwright that she made her most substantial and best known works. In fact, in 1931 she became only the second woman playwright to win the Pulitzer Prize for Alison’s House (Gale).
Previous to Alison’s house, the play Trifles is Glaspell …show more content…
Her eloquence in Trifles, and certainly during her career, lies in her ability to make implicit statements in non-verbal assertions: "Just as the women create their instinctive theories out of trifles, so the playwright builds her play out of small gestures (a broken hinge on a birdcage which reflects the broken neck of the bird, the broken neck of the man, but also the broken spirit of the woman, who had bought the cage). The man imprisons the woman, the woman imprisons the bird. And yet they are all imprisoned in a system equally implacable.… It is a play which works by understatement" (Bigsby
Susan Glaspell: A Woman Committed to Every Woman
In the process of women’s emancipation as autonomous entities in a male-dominated society, literature, as the powerful mean of conversion that it is, has been one of their most strong weapons to successfully launch their critical, social comments against the oppression of their male counterparts. Female writing emerges out of this struggle to be acknowledged today as a separate category of scholarly interest. Among many important female authors in English Literature, Susan Glaspell “is now widely recognized”, and studied “as one of the most influential” (Black).
Glaspell was born July 1, 1876, in Davenport, Iowa, although other sources cite her birth year as 1882. She was a fertile novelist and productive short story writer with thirteen plays, fourteen novels, and more than fifty essays, articles, and short stories to her credit. Nevertheless, it is as a playwright that she made her most substantial and best known works. In fact, in 1931 she became only the second woman playwright to win the Pulitzer Prize for Alison’s House (Gale).
Previous to Alison’s house, the play Trifles is Glaspell …show more content…
Her eloquence in Trifles, and certainly during her career, lies in her ability to make implicit statements in non-verbal assertions: "Just as the women create their instinctive theories out of trifles, so the playwright builds her play out of small gestures (a broken hinge on a birdcage which reflects the broken neck of the bird, the broken neck of the man, but also the broken spirit of the woman, who had bought the cage). The man imprisons the woman, the woman imprisons the bird. And yet they are all imprisoned in a system equally implacable.… It is a play which works by understatement" (Bigsby