Essay on Feminist Themes of Susan Glaspells Plays

Susan Glaspell was one of the first great American female playwrights. Her plays are often short, one or two acts, but they tell a story greater than just what appears on the page. Three of her plays, Trifles (1916), Women’s Honor (1918), and The Verge (1921), have feminist themes that show the consequences of the oppression of women, as is the case with many of her plays. All three plays were written during the first wave of feminism, during which there was a push for women to have jobs and opportunities and identities, ideas well represented in Glaspell’s plays. Glaspell’s plays show the struggle of being a woman during an era when women were trying to form their own identities. Through Glaspell’s use of feminist themes in Trifles,†¦show more content†¦Hale often dwelled upon. It was also something Mrs. Wright missed. Mrs. Hale spoke of what a great person Minnie Foster was before she became Minnie Wright. Mrs. Wright was driven to madness. She was cut off from everything that gave her life, left only to care for her husband and her bird, and once her husband killed the bird, she had nothing left to live for. Minnie Wright was trapped within an abusive relationship with no escape in sight and that led her to eventually snap (Glaspell 40). From the perspectives of these trapped women, the murder is completely justified, showing a major consequence to treating women as less than men. Another major theme is the female identity, and it is found mostly within the analysis of Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Peters. In her marriage, Mrs. Wright was a woman who lost her identity because her husband destroyed every piece of who she was as Minnie Foster. Mrs. Wright shows no sign of Minnie Foster any more because of her husband. Her individual female identity was destroyed by his need for power and control over her. His control reached into every aspect of her life, so much so that after she killed him, she seemed not only very strange but ac cording to Mr. Hale she did not seem to know what to do next. John Wright was mentally controlling her even after she killed him, but at least she was physically free of him (Glaspell 37-38). In Mrs. Peters case, she is directly told by the county attorney that she has no identity separate from herShow MoreRelatedFeminism at Its Best810 Words   |  3 PagesPeers,† Susan Glaspell articulates the suffrage women of her time had to endure brought on by the weaker sex stereotype that had plagued the human brain for quite some time. Annenberg Learner states that the short story is based on a true event Susan Glaspell had covered in 1900 while working as a reporter for Des Moines Daily News (Annenberg Learner; Glaspell 179). 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