Literature and Ourselves

Literature and Ourselves

Table of Contents

In most cases play performance are for entertainment, but they are some that entertain and leave a piece of advice on the target audience. Trifles are one of the dramas that the audience gets entertained and leave with some educative information. One of the peak interests about this drama play is where the author casts the gender of expectations. She uses the theme of responsibility and that of freedom to cast the gender expectation aspects (Glaspell, pg. 768).


The author tries to define some characteristics that men and women have during the drama period. During the early times, women were not allowed to engage in certain activities, and this is clearly demonstrated when the author uses the murder plot. It is through this the author distinguishes man and women through their roles. Based on gender, each sex was required to perform certain activities and visit certain places. During early time, there existed two types of spheres that were used to define gender roles for men and women. Men had no problem and could stay and exist in the private and the public sphere, but women were restricted to the private sphere only, (Glaspell, pg. 775).


The title of the drama is a clear indication that women had no place or had little value in some concerns. Women were taken as trifles; thus they were associated with trifling things that had no importance in the community. Mr. seconds those assumptions on how weak women were by explaining that women feared trifle things. Women were taken as second class citizens, and that clearly explains the gender expectations that the author put across the audience of the play. Men were the works while the work of the women was to help men, (Glaspell, pg. 772).


Work Cited:

Glaspell, Susan. “Trifles”. Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X Day, Robert Funk. 8th Edition. New Jersey: Pearson, 2007.763-776. Print
Glaspell, Susan. “Trifles”. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008: 1368-1377




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