Free writing journal

Trifles by Susan Glaspell is not just a simple story about a wife murdering her husband, it clearly shows how men and women’s perspective about things differ. It shows and makes me feel how the female characters felt undervalued by the patriarchal society. Men’s cold treatment when it comes to their wives is shown through the cold feeling described within the house. There is no warmth in the story, almost devoid of hope. The only hope that can be seen is symbolized by the last uncracked jar that the two wives, Mrs. Hales and Mrs. Peters, found in the kitchen. All the rest were cracked showing that women, though pretending to be tough are still vulnerable under extreme cold temperature. The story makes me feel the disappointment of the author with the society. Because she’s a woman, she understands how other women may have felt trapped within a marriage that does not allow them to grow and be themselves. I felt anger and frustration at how the men in the story treated women’s things and activities as trifles, useless, senseless things. I also felt the hidden anger, which was shown with the discovery of Mrs. Wright’s motive to kill her husband. I felt the undervalued strength of women as they band together, like sisters protecting their own, when the two wives took the evidence proving that Mrs. Wright has enough motive to kill her husband.
This short story makes the reader realize that women are really in touch with their own nature and they are often misunderstood by men. It is full of symbolism showing how women are unappreciated and underestimated. But more than that I felt the calling within the story, the call for women to take arms and band themselves together in order to fight the injustice against women, to create a place for women in the world, not merely as slaves in marriage but as a partner towards creating a successful family and society.