I particularly love the way Glaspell wrote how differently the men and women behaved and reacted to each other. It was not simply to play on the typical dissimilarity of the sexes, but instead she used it to form and drive her story. This story displayed a real power for women, not only with their ability to recognize clues that the men missed, but also in their relationships and bonds as women.
The irony of the story is that the men never even considered that the women could make any valuable observation. The women noticed details that only they would recognize, such as the dirty pots under the sink or the crooked sewing on the quilt square. The men simply dismissed these out of place things as her failure as a housekeeper. The men dismissed these observations as women’s “trifles”, but the things they noticed actually solved the case. This also hints at the underlying theme of the community of women. These women didn’t just see the subtle hints, but they also saw what Mrs. Wright’s life was really like. They could empathize with her cold life of silence and knew exactly why she would want a bird; just to hear the singing.
One thing I really like was how the men and women reacted differently with one another. For instance, when they first come in the house the men rush to the stove and the women hang back, when the men are upstairs the women have no problem going directly to the stove and commenting about the cold temperature. Also, the women are markedly more quite when the men are in the room. The men give the women no respect, but rather speak to them like children.
I thought it was interesting to also how the women's comfort level differed in various parts of the house and that the kitchen is where they were the most comfortable moving about. It goes back to the old fashioned idea of a women's place being in the kitchen. I agree with argument that was made earlier that if the men had wanted to gain any insight into the mind of Mrs. Wright, they would have looked in the kitchen for clues.
ReplyDeleteGoing off of the different locations, I thought it was interesting how the men were outsiders the whole time. They were upstairs, then they went to the barn, and then they checked the other rooms. They were basically everywhere accept the kitchen, where the actual clues were.
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