Trifles

            Susan Glaspell’s Trifles is a play inspired by a true story. Trifles is about a murder that took place in the Wright house. But the suspect was Millie Wright who was thought to have murdered her husband in bed by strangling him with a rope. Out of all the plays, I enjoyed reading this one the most. For one thing I can actually understand it clearly and for another thing, the whole time I was reading it, I could imagine exactly what the scenery would have looked like. I like this play because in the end, it seemed that the women were the ones who found the most evidence and came up with the best conclusion as to why she did it. It was ironic because the whole time, both of the women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale were getting made fun of by the other men.

            Yes the women did comment on a couple things that were irrelevant to the murder but what did the men want them to do besides gather some of the stuff that was on Mrs. Wright’s list. If they had tried to tell the men about what they had interpreted in the kitchen, the men would not have taken them seriously anyway. This play did a good job in portraying how men viewed women as being useless and good for only one thing, which is being a good house wife and mother. That is why even the men were criticizing how bad of a housewife Mrs. Wright was which was also unimportant to the murder case. However they felt the need to say it because women were expected to be good house wives and that might have gave them an idea that since she was sloppy in the kitchen, she must not have been a good wife to her husband, meaning it was possible that she had done the killing.

            I also loved the symbolism in the play. I liked how the bird represented Millie. Millie was described as being this vibrant and cheerful girl that loved to sing. The bird may have represented her not only because the bird can also sing but because the bird is locked up in a cage (obviously) and Mrs. Wright has been locked up in her stranded house for years with her husband who also use to kill any spark of cheer or happiness in the house, as described by Mrs. Hale, her neighbor. When Mr. Wright killed that bird, it’s liked he killed the last bit of cheer the household holds. To Mrs. Wright, that was the only thing that she looked forward to and loved in that home. So it’s like he killed the last bit of spirit within her. To her, that was the last straw, so she murdered him the same way he intentionally killed her bird.

            To me, I think John Wright deserved what he got. He ruined his wife’s spirit and made her go from the carefree person she used to be, to have her be just an object or property in which he can control. I liked how Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter’s (who is “married to the law”) stood up to the men for criticizing her.  Although murder isn’t good, they knew there was nothing else Mrs. Wright can do to get away. They knew how she felt because they were women too and they saw things from her perspective other than the fact that she committed a crime. They knew that no woman deserves to be treated like that by her husband.

            The “Sheltering Women and Their Pets Too” article was very relevant to the play because it shows how abused women hold a close relationship to their pets and how much they care about them to the point that if they are in an abusive relationship, they would rather stay home and not leave their pets behind. This is because their pets are their friends especially at a time where they are the only good thing living in an abusive household. This makes it understandable why Mrs. Wright felt so torn up when her husband had killed her bird.

            This play is interesting because it was based on a true murder trial when a woman actually did murder her husband. When they didn’t find any real evidence to support that she had done it, they let her go after the second trial. This was because she portrayed herself as being so upset and innocent to the jury and they thought that why would a woman like her do something like that. If it was a man who had done the killing, I don’t think they would be so easy about it since women are portrayed as weak. She used their own stereotyping against them which actually worked. I thought that was genius.

Murder Was Her Only Way

Euripides Medea is an ancient Greek play written about a furious woman who seeks revenge to her husband who married the king’s daughter without her knowledge. She sets out to kill him, the princess, and the king. However she also kills two innocent young lives- her kids. This reveals to us the type of woman Medea is.

Although Medea seems revengeful and cold hearted, she does show her strength as a woman and since Euripides is known for writing Greek plays defending women, the message in this play tells us that even though Jason turned out to be a back stabber, Medea like most women, did not just sit there and watch. She was furious and took action. Although we know murder is the wrong way to handle things, I’m still glad Medea stepped up and did something. Even today people think of women as weak and won’t take the action that they deserve. That is why I think this play is significant, especially because it was written at a time where women were looked down upon the most.

However, I do not think it was right at all when she kills her own children. They were her own flesh and blood, but she seemed to think that it was more important to see her husband suffer through his children’s loss, than the actual fact that she had lost her own children forever just to get revenge. This shows the selfish, cold hearted side of her. However, that is what made the play a tragedy. Anyone can understand why she had killed her husband, because he betrayed her, and why she had killed his wife, because she only cared about herself and what she wanted, despite the fact that Jason already had a family.  And finally, we can understand that she killed the king because he not only approved of the marriage, but wanted her to exile knowing she had nowhere to go. But killing innocent lives for her own benefit is what made this play tragic and emotional. I also think that it was crazy how in one part of the play Medea even admitted that her kids have done nothing, and she is taking it out on them, yet she goes out and does it anyway.

I enjoyed reading this play because it was interesting to read Medea’s plan to seek revenge. However, the whole time I was thinking that she is a little crazy for going out and killing all those people, especially in the beginning when the nurse tells us that she had killed her brother and the two king’s daughters to get what she wants. This gets me to believe that it was karma, not only to her husband but to her because she also did wrong doing to get the Golden Fleece for Jason.  It just shows that what comes around goes around. After all she did for Jason, he was still after one thing, which was to get his status up.

No Sex or No War ?

 Aristophanes "Lysistrata" is a play about a woman who unlike the others, wishes for peace and takes action. She thinks up a brilliant plan to stop the war and have all the men come back home to their wives. To do so she gathered up all the women and told them her idea to go on a strike to stop having sex until the men stop the war for good and make peace. Although at first, they did not think it was a good idea, eventually they all vowed to not be sexually active until their husbands give up and end the war. Eventually the men did decide to give up and wanted to resolve the war. But towards the end of this play, it got to be ironic.

Since old Greek plays such as this one viewed women to be lower than men in society, Aristophanes made this particular play about war and the main character in it was indeed a woman. Although this play was actually acted by all men who played as women, Arisophanes message in the play was that war was ridiculous and in order to have peace, one must step up and try to end the war. To do so, he made the hero a woman (Lysistrata) who also symbolized how ridiculous the war was since women themselves were thought to be unimportant to anything, especially wars. I find that kind of interesting and offensive at the same time because of the fact that women were thought out to be ridiculous and that was what helped make the play comedic.

I thought the play was unique because it shows the masculinity of a woman through her actions. While others stayed home, took care of the kids, house work, and pleased their husbands. Lysistrata wanted to take some kind of action by forcing herself and convincing others to stop having sex and be stronger in will than the men, she succeeded by showing herself and the other women as to being stronger and men were weaker. This sends out the message that women are not just sex objects or house wives, but they can be good for something as well as the men. Lysistrata made a commitment and stuck to it.

The play had an ironic ending because during the meeting that the Athenians had with Spartans, The men were all more concerned about the naked woman. They treated her as an object or as property rather than a human, even though Lysistrata proved to them that they are weaker than the women and her genius plan did work, they have changed their views about women, which until today still exist.

Although I did not find most of the scenes to be funny, I am amazed of how the stereotypes about women viewed in this play still reflect some of the stereotypes viewed today. Women are still viewed lower than men, and the man will always be viewed as the bread winner, no matter how successful the woman in the family is. This is because that is how society has always analyzed women to be. For example, in the play, the women were concerned about their appearance and until this day, women are still expected to look good and pay more attention to their appearance than men. Even in popular movies such as “Transformers”, the women who are supposed to look strong also have to look sexy for the camera. This was in the article called “Why Strong Female Characters Are Bad for Women” I found the articles to be quite interesting because they match exactly the stereotypical views of a woman. I also find it interesting how sex strikes are still going on today like in countries like Kenya in the articles “Kenya: Men Start 30 Day Sex strike” or “Kenya: Women Go On Sex Strike.”  I don’t think these stereotypes will not change anytime soon. They lasted since many centuries ago, and will probably continue to go on for the many years to come because it has become as a law of society.