Susan Glaspell's Influence On Trifles

Susan Glaspell wrote the social satire, Trifles, in 1916. The play includes elements of what the women’s suffrage movement was all about and incorporates the mood of society during that time towards women; their social status was viewed beneath a male. It also shows the discriminatory mentality men had towards women that were commonly accepted. Trifles, described as something of little value or importance, is enlighten throughout the play. This new vision of the lack of roles for women during the 1800s, in which she wrote and lived, would influence her writing.

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are left downstairs while their husbands are investigating the crime scene. Since the women had to obey their husbands, they are left to search the rest of

She graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, with a Ph. B. in Philosophy (Waterman 13). Her Midwestern background seems to be what influenced her writing throughout her career. After graduation, Glaspell took a full-time position as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News. The play “Trifles,” was inspired by an actual murder case she covered while working for the newspaper. A year later, Glaspell left journalism to write short fiction, quickly becoming a frequent contributor to popular and literary magazines. As she wrote about the life she knew as a middle-class Midwestern woman, Glaspell broadened her view of the world with membership in discussion groups devoted to a broad range of progressive causes, such as feminism, socialism, Darwinism, and legal reform. Later, she and her husband, George Cram Cook, founded the Provincetown Players, an experimental theatre company in Province Massachusetts, dedicated to American playwrights of serious social and artistic purpose. Her husband introduced her to new ways of thinking. “She had met Cook and was pulled into the world of socialism, a concern with women’s suffrage, and a more realistic apprehension of the world around her--a new vision”