Trifles {The Role of Women​}

Her Women: Glaspell's Treatment of Her Female Characters in Trifles

 

“I know how things can be--for women... We all go through the same things—it’s all just a different kind of the same thing!” -Mrs. Hale, Lines 330-33

 

Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Peters, and Minnie Wright are three completely different women--from social status to personality--yet they find reason to band together as women during the course of Trifles. As Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters uncover more facts about Minnie's life, they identify with her more and more. Identification with female thoughts and feelings is characteristic of Glaspell's work. Glaspell gives her women both presence and power in Trifles (Ozieblo 63), and this is mainly due to their central position in the movement of the storyline. While the men self-importantly discuss evidence that in the end does not matter, the women discover the "trifles" that will lead them to a verdict and us to an understanding of the play (Gainor 45). Meanwhile, the men merely dismiss these important aspects of the play as merely "kitchen things". Glaspell is seen by many critics to be a supporter of feminism. Their opinion arises from her commitment to empowering women by putting them in the center of her works and also by leading the audience to sympathize with them (Ozieblo 64).

 

By limiting the number of female characters in Trifles to only three (with one who never appears and is only spoken about), Glaspell exposes each one to all sorts of character development. Glaspell's characters (and especially her woman ones) were extremely important to her as she developed a habit of visualizing them and "listening" to them as their true personalities came out (Ozieblo 61). This section is dedicated to the roles of Glaspell's three important women and what messages they convey about the role of women in general.