Trifles {The Role of Women​}

In Trifles, the two main speakers, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, are only referred to by their last names. Names are symbolic in this play because they serve as an essential tie between each wife and her husband. By not being called by their first names, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters lose much of their individual identity, and their attachment to their husbands is emphasized. Glaspell uses these names to give a stark reality of what life was like for a woman at this time. These names show that the women were expected to submit to their husbands and agree with them (on topics like justice, for instance). Glaspell does not call the women by their last names to undermine their presence; she only does it to show their reality. She then counters the women's bleak reality by making the stage theirs after the men leave and go upstairs. In the end, Glaspell uses the irony that the women were the ones who cracked the case to empower her female characters. Their husbands leave with questions and confusion, while they leave with certainty and authority, giving them a moral separation from their husbands that society so desperately tries to attach them to.