Symbols in Trifles of a Woman’s OppressionAs Ben-Zvi notes, “women who kill evoke fear because they challenge societal constructs of femininity—passivity, restraint, and nurture” (141). For this reason, Susan Glaspell couched her play Trifles in comedic irony show as to show the real effects of oppressed womanhood that finally explodes in a way that would get the point across to the audience without frightening it to death. After all, the play was written at a time before women had even received the right to vote in 1920. It was conceived decades before the Feminist Movement came into existence during the 1960s following Betty Friedan’s landmark work The Feminine Mystique. Trifles contrasts sharply with the view of womanhood that had emerged by the end of the 20th century, at which point women had entered into the workforce, were running large companies, and were no longer expected to stay in their homes like birds in cages. This paper will show how Glaspell uses symbolism in Trifles to illustrate the oppression of womanhood prior to their sociopolitical emancipation in the 20th century—and the ill effects that could follow that oppression when the...

Wright was pushed the brink. First, there is the symbol of the rocking chair—a chair that is never still or firmly planted on the ground but always moving back and forth, front to back. It is a symbol of nervousness and unsteadiness. It is a symbol of a mind that should be at rest but is always in motion. At the beginning of the play, Mrs. Wright is found in her rocking chair appearing calm and sedate—but the reality is that she is quite troubled and has been very active (in killing her husband). Like the rocking chair, however, she doesn’t let on but says only that her husband “died of a rope around his neck” (Glaspell 981)—the type of ironic line that Glaspell delivers with gusto to fill the play with subtle humor.
Mrs. Wright is taken to jail for holding while the investigation is conducted. While there she asks for her apron. The women accompanying their husbands during the investigation remark that she won’t have much need of an apron in jail but they miss the meaning behind the symbol. The apron is the symbol…