The progressive era surrounding the turn of the twentieth century were full of shifting emotions in the populace. The idea of prohibition was gaining momentum in the minds of housewives leading up to the eighteenth amendment. Even as women were gaining bargaining room they still were seen as weaker to their husbands and other males of their life. The Yellow Wall-Paper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, published in 1892 gives an insight into the beginning of this progressive era. On the other side in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles, from 1916, we see a similar lack of respect towards women. Although these stories are different, there is still evidence of women going against the social norms. When one becomes confined to solitary oftentimes the brain will entertain itself within the environment it finds itself. Locked away in an attic nursery we see Gilman’s narrator occupying herself with the wallpaper. In the beginning of The Yellow Wall-Paper the narrator see’s that her husband believes she is hysterical for a term; whereas, she believed there was something wrong (Gilman 486). The narrator sees rest as her last concern, she wants to be able to work and write so she ends up doing so in secret (Gilman 487). With each segment, she grows …show more content…
Wright had done anything. This was still a point where women were considered much weaker than men. The women were asked to gather up her things while the men saw to the crime scene, this lead to the discovery of a songbird wrapped in silk with a wrung neck (Glaspell 750). The ladies are quick to determine what had happened and hid the evidence, and at the end taking it out in Mrs. Hale’s pocket. The men spend much of their time conversing on their own not giving much thought to the idea of Mrs. Wright having strangled her husband. Towards the end they mention the idea but without evidence they know no jury would convict Mrs. Wright for John Wright’s
She murdered He because he was an awful person and would not let her have something that would make her at least smile. A team of individuals including of the sheriff, county attorney, Mr. Hale, and Mrs. Peters were on a mission to find the purpose of the murderer. At this point, Mrs. Wright is the main suspect. Mrs. Hale was asked to go with them to give Mrs. Peters, the
Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered today for the hearing of Minnie Wright who is unjustly being accused of killing her husband John Wright. The evidence is said to be clearly against her and to be enough to prove her guilty. The truth is that it if we analyze the alleged evidence correctly, it is not clear at all and does not prove anything to accuse Mrs. Wright of murder. Today ladies and gentlemen, we are here to prove that the accused, Minnie Wright, is innocent of murdering her husband John Wright.
The prosecution presented an unusual demonstration by bringing the Wrights' actual bed into the courtroom. In Siegler’s eyes, Wright seduced her husband, tied him to the bed, stabbed him, and buried him in the backyard in order to obtain his life insurance money. After five and a half hours of deliberations, on March 3, 2004, Wright was convicted of murder. She was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Her conviction was upheld in 2005 by the Fourteenth Court of Appeals of Texas.
Peters and Mrs. Hale are the ones who find clues to solving the murder. Glaspell foreshadows this outcome by having the county attorney say “‘…[n]o telling; you women might come upon a clue to the motive…’” (Glaspell). Once the men leave the women alone they begin putting together items to take to Mrs. Wright in jail and no one is concerned with what they are taking her because the men do not see anything from the domestic realm to be dangerous. While they are putting together items, Mrs. Peters stumbles upon a birdcage that has clearly been roughed up, and eventually they locate a deceased bird.
Three women, Minnie Wright, Martha Hale, and Mrs. Peters express sisterhood by hiding of incriminating evidence such as the dead bird while the men fail to prove of her complicity. This essay focuses on themes of sisterhood and gender roles, and the passiveness that manifests in the process of gathering evidence. The theme of Sisterhood. As the plot unfolds to ascertain the murder of John Wright, Mrs. Hale says, “it looked very lonesome this cold morning, it had always been a lonesome place” (Glaspell, 1992), while referring to the house of Minnie Wright.
Previously Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s loyal wife, had been hard stuck on the idea that the law was just and served justice fairly. After the women find evidence that could convict Mrs. Wright and piecing the story together of her motive, the men begin to return and Glaspell writes, “Suddenly MRS. PETERS throws back quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing. It is too big. She opens box, starts to take bird out, cannot touch it, goes to pieces, stands there helpless.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we are here today to discuss the murder of John Wright. On November 15, Mr. Wright was found in his bed with a rope around his neck, presumably strangled to death. His body was discovered by his wife supposedly and did not bother to notify to the local authorities. At eight o'clock in the morning, Mr. Hale went to look for Mr. Wright and found Minnie, Mr. Wright’s wife, sitting in a rocking chair inside of the house. Mr. Hale asked Minnie for her husband and she stated that John Wright was dead in the bedroom.
From the women’s own experiences they have an understanding of why Mrs Wright would want an animal to keep her company. The final piece of evidence that solidifies Mrs Wright as the killer is the dead bird from the empty cage. Martha and Peters find a box that they assumed was from Mrs Wright’s childhood, “What a pretty box! I 'll warrant that was
Isolation, confinement and loneliness are major themes within Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. Without Isolation, confinement and loneliness, the novels would have an entirely different consequences and outcome. With the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper and Lennie from Of Mice and Men being isolated in the setting of the novels, there is no escape from achieving a positive resolution. Dialogue shows the confinement of Lennie’s and the narrator’s mental capacities, as well as foreshadowing, that demonstrates how the only way to gain a sense of freedom in both texts is to die.
In the nineteenth century, woman had no power over men in society. They were limited in their freedom, as their lives were controlled by their husbands. Some women did not mind this lifestyle, and remained obedient, while some rebelled and demanded their rights. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, are short stories that exposes the lifestyle women lived in the nineteenth century. The protagonists from both stories, Jane and Georgiana, similarly lived a male dominated lifestyle.
The mess of a kitchen, the poorly sewn quilt, and the dead bird make a solid case to convict Mrs. Wright for her husband's death, but the men are oblivious
The men of the group, much like John in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” consider themselves more capable than the women and refuse to consider Mrs. Wright as anything other than irrational. The men leave the women to their “trifles” on the first floor, where they discover a broken bird cage, and the bird’s body, broken, carefully wrapped in a small, decorative box. They realize that Mr. Wright had wrung the neck of his wife’s beloved bird and broken its cage. Mrs. Wright, once known for her cheerfulness and beautiful singing, she stopped singing when she encountered Mr. Wright. Just like he did with the bird, Mr. Wright choked the life out of his wife until, finally, Mrs. Wright literally choked the life out of her husband.
Mrs. Wright planned to bury the bird, but something kept her from doing it until she ended up in jail after the death of her husband.
Glen, I believe Gilman’s story “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written during a time of change. Many women suffered from domestic ideology during the mid –nineteenth century positioning them as the spiritual and moral leaders of their homes. In that time men were the dominate role and the women were the homemakers not able to voice their independence from their husbands. I agree many women may have lived in fear and I could not imagine going through the struggles of women in that era. Women were slaves to the household in a sense, shackled unable to break free.
In literature, the subject of madness has often been touched and exploited throughout the eras by a great number of writers with many perspectives. It has not only been discussed but also used as a symbol by the great artists as Shakespeare and Virginia Woolf to convey and expose deeper, metaphorical messages. In their works the state of insanity is used as a symbol of a superior cognition of the world or deeper sensitivities. The motif of madness as a symbol is also often exploited by many women writers of nineteenth century.