Sophie Treadwell Character Analysis

When I read Sophie Treadwell’s play, I found that there were so many characters who have their own stories. But, these characters must survive in a society where men are dominant over women. I liked that the protagonist Helen was not really a bad person, but does murder her husband. Helen is not portrayed as an evil woman who tries to manipulate the people around her, but she is still the killer in this play. This is a woman who is unhappy and ends up killing her husband. But, this play has shown me the flaws in that society as the author depicts them such as abortion and homosexuality.

I found the play to be somewhat difficult to follow along with because there were so many characters that were speaking especially in the first scene. The first scene depicts a chaotic business area as the clerks were working and the numbers are called out at a high speed. When we watched the video of the first scene in class, it made more sense to me. I loved the different ways the first scene is shown in the live play as the chaos is heard through the sounds and constant movement. When I found out this was based on a real woman who was the first to die in the electric chair shocking and makes me think about the society surrounding this woman. The overall outline of the play was very different from what I am

Even towards the end, she is surrounded by men who think she is insane. There was a prisoner singing and I could see a connection that she felt towards it. The priest is also there, but she feels a level of understanding which makes me think that the man singing was of African American descent. Women and colored people were not valued as much as white men were which makes me think that the author used this character to prove that. The story reflects the questioning of a woman’s sanity, in a world where men are seen as sane. The author uses this character to point out the flaws in that