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Isolation In Trifles

684 Words3 Pages

Disassociation with the world is very heavy on one’s mental stability. People tend to feel trapped in the security of their lifestyle, doubting all ability to grow and move on. In John Steinbeck’s, “Chrysanthemums”, and Susan Glaspell’s, “Trifles”, two domestic wives living on lonesome farmhouses, deal with their disappointment at life thru two outlets- Chrysanthemums and the canary. These passions are the children they never had, giving light to their bleak lives. Steinbeck and Glaspell explore the psychological consequences of limitations and isolation from Elisa Allen and Minnie Wrights viewpoints.
The husbands, Henry Allen and John Wright, are unaffected by the gloom of isolation that has a powerful force on the minds of Elisa and Minnie. The men “seem better suited to the loneliness and isolation of rural farming” (Galens) whereas the women are severely afflicted by the life they live. The husbands, as landowners and farmers, are able to keep busy and easily overlook the underlying problems in their marriages. In Trifles, the men investigating the scene of the murder ignore all the important clues that answer who killed John Wright, but the intuitive wives do not. Mrs. …show more content…

These outlets of happiness help them escape their miserable, confined lives. For Elisa, the Chrysanthemum symbolizes beauty and the freedom to grow. She has a curious and adventurous spirit at heart, but is trapped by her monotonous life on the farm. For Minnie, the canary brings song back into her life and symbolizes the freedom she longs for. Minnie, a once happy town girl who sang in the choir, married what Mrs. Hale describes as, “he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him- (Shivers.) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone”. The women love the chrysanthemums and the canary because they distract them from the unhappiness that isolation

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