Blog Post #3 "Trifles"

Although I was a little skeptical about reading a play, I really enjoyed reading "Trifles". After reading it, I think I've read it sometime before and parts of it seemed familiar to me. I found the plot very interesting, but also thought it hightlighted some of the main ideas men feel towards women throughout the piece. It also shows what men expected of women at this time, and how much men believed the women's main role was to take care of the house. One of the first places I noticed this in the play was on page 982 when Hale was talking about when he first entered the house. "Well, I was surprised, she didn't ask me to come up to the stove, or to set down, but she just sat there.." This shows how women were supposed to automatically greet anyone, and be a great host to guests coming into their home. Another similar part is on page 983 when the county attorney notices the dirty towels in the apartment and says, "Not much of a housekeeper, would you say ladies?" It was kind of crazy to me that they would be making these subtle comments while investigating a death in the house. They also make jabs at them later in the text for talking about what type of quilting she was doing. When the women talk about Mrs.Wright, they talk about how happy she used to be before she was married. It seems that becoming a housewife changed her in a negative way, and the women act like she wasn't herself after being married.

Even though this play was based a while ago, I thought many of the aspects still applied today. As we've talked about in class, it's still always thought that when a baby is born the women will take off work and take care of the home. Many men who are stay at home dads get a negative view, and mocked because it's not "the normal". Women are always depicted as the "housekeepers" and I think women still look down on other women if they don't keep their houses neat and tidy, like a women is "supposed" to.