Susan Glaspell's Trifles

Analysis Roles of the Women in Susan Glaspell’ play “ Trifles”
By Deby Valentina

1. Background In drama, character refers to a textual representation of a human being (or occasionally another creature). Character development is the key element in a story's creation. The story's protagonist is the central agent in generating its plot, and this individual can embody the story's theme. Characters can be either round or flat, depending on their level of development and the extent to which they change. Susan Glaspell in Trifles developed in relatively few words, is a round character because character from the women in this drama decribed how she wanted to bring up the feminism on her drama. Character could be divided into some parts such as:
The women as a play for men when they tried to express their feeling and something important but men haven’t seen it important
The trifles in this play that the women see as important, the men make fun of. For example, when the Sheriff reaches up into the cupboard and comes away with a sticky hand, the woman express sadness that her fruit (preserves) had frozen. Rather than recognizing all the hard work that went into making those preserves, the Sheriff exclaims, "Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin' about her preserves". He deems their concerns unimportant. Again the women look closely at the quilt and are made fun of. "They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it. (The men laugh, the women look abashed") According to the men, this is just another mere trifle that the women are concerned about. However, again, the women notice that suddenly the stitches change, and they wonder what happened to upset her so. They can see the evidence of turmoil in her quilt. They actually see the evidence of unhappiness and troubled times everywhere in this
The women, Mrs Hale and Mrs Peter found the evidence for the murder case of John Wright which the murderer was his wife, Mrs Wright ( Minnie ). Minnie was a nice wife, but also a desperate housewife. She could live by her own because her husband didnt give excuse. As a wife, Minnie let her hobbies and gave up everything for her husband. The women, Mrs Hale and Mrs Peter felt emphatized and then decided to cover the murder, even they knew that was wrong. The women in this story was assumed as a fool, which men underestimated them. The women was played by the men, as a servant or keep the household, because they assumed that women didnt know anything. Glaspell brought the feminism and emansipation in this play, when women could be samrter than men. Women saw unimportant things which led them to solve the murder case. But in the end, they covered it because they protected Minnies whom her life was so pitiful and screwed because of her