Role of Gender Differences in the play Trifles by Susan Glaspell - Essay Example

Role of Gender Differences in the play Trifles by Susan Glaspell Introduction “Trifles” is a play written by Susan Glaspell. It is a one-act play written in the year 1916. Susan’s short story, “A Jury of Her Peers” was adopted from her play just a year after the debut performance of the play. The play was first performed by the Provincetown Players. The play, “Trifle” is viewed as the epitome of feminist discourse. And this feminism finds profound expression through exemplary and explicit character representation of two women characters in the play namely Mrs Peters and Mrs Hale.

Gender Difference in Trifles Man and woman relationships and behaviours are differentiated on a thin line. Though subtle yet the line that dissipates the behavioural differences are exposed to definite exploration. For the greater part of the play, there is no geographical separation of gender. But a pertinent separation of motives, objectives and thought processes of the character occur which try to separate the entities of the gender in the play. This is done with the intention of drawing difference between the genders in the play.

Glaspell tries to make this difference pertinent operating at two levels in the play. Initially the difference is been operated verbally and at the secondary level the behavioural difference of the characters, their actions and the course of the plot development indicate the gender differences of operating in the play as well. At the outset of the play, the audience are introduced with couple of timid and insignificant women who eventually with the course of plot development in the play turns into delicate detectives.

These women are undermined by the male characters in the play. But by the end of the play those very women who were insignificant, powerless and unimportant in the plot of the play, discover the clues that explore that a female who is the murderer of her not so dearly departed husband. At the same time, the men in the play are displayed as overtly and arrogant overlooking and undermining the so called “trifling” clues investigated by the women detectives and even the murderer who is a woman.

The role of gender difference finds its root in the background of Trifles. The latter half of the nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of the evolving American Women who were trying relentlessly to cope up with their male counterpart and establish their entity and independence. And Glaspell’s engagement with the vision to fight the contemporary controversial topics concerned with the inequality of the gender and determining the inability of women section without any reason to determine incapable of living their own lives without reliance on male section of the society.

During the latter half of the nineteenth century by 1915, the Provincetown Players became the struggling shrine for the American plays for production of broadways that are woven with controversial feministic and social issues. Contemporary writers like Chopin and Fern along with the practice of the plays with themes based on gender differences provoked the representation of the theme in the play “Trifles”. Conclusion The play “Trifles” is an excellent representation of the crucial themes that emerged as a conscious social discourse during later half of the nineteenth century.

Gender role in the play “Trifles” is conscious representation of female section of society emerging in America during that period. Some through symbols and some facets evocative through the background of the play make a pertinent feminist discourse in the play which tries to muses the powerful image of women in society. “Trifles”, far from being a mere play on crime thriller, embraces a serious hint on the gender role and gender differences prevalent in the American society. Bibliography Maillakais, M.

“A Womans Place: Literary Background for Glaspells Trifles” September 25, 2011. Florida Gulf Coast University. July 30, 1996.