Comparing Relationships in Susan Glaspells Trifles and...

Female Relationships in Susan Glaspells Trifles and Cherrie Moragas Giving Up the Ghost The plays Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, and Giving Up the Ghost, by Cherrie Moraga, focus on womens interaction in various contexts. Despite the seventy-eight years between their performance dates and the drastic difference in settings and narrative content, the main female characters are comparable, as Mrs. Hale, in Trifles, points out, We all go through the same things -- its just a different kind of the same thing (Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, 1359). These plays show the varying degrees of closeness women can have in female relationships, and the role circumstances play. When Trifles opens, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters do not†¦show more content†¦Mrs. Hale uses the canary as a metaphor for Mrs. Wright, who once sang and, also like the bird, was kept in a cage. The county attorney telling Mrs. Peters, a sheriffs wife is married to the law (1359), causes her to think of herself as similar to Mrs. Wright, as she is in the figurative cage of morality, in which she must decide to stay confined or leave by disregarding the law. By interpreting the house, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters can discern Mrs. Wrights emotions and rationale for killing her husband. Just as Mrs. Hale thinks it is a crime to have not visited Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Peters acknowledges her previous criminal desire to hurt the boy who killed her kitten: the realization of their similarities brings Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters closer to the persona of Mrs. Wright they have imagined, and indirectly to each other. Because they can understand her, these women sympathize with Mrs. Wright and thus d o not condemn her, but instead rationalize her actions. Though not stated, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters probably think they are more suitable judges of Mrs. Wright since men are incapable of understanding her, and therefore conceal the evidence of her motive in an effort to declare her innocent. Despite this technically being obstruction of justice, audiences likely view the women as preventing a greater injustice; thus, Glaspell could be suggesting that together women can circumvent the constraints of society and/or government. At a time when women did not serve on juries,