Cultural Analysis of Susan Glaspell's Trifles and Edith Wharton's Roman Fever - Essay Example

Resistance Literature: The Feminine Voice Introduction The literary project was faced with the mission of expressing or giving voice to a huge range of individuals with whom literature has little in common as regards cultural framework and values. Authors, like Susan Glaspell and Edith Wharton, did not back away from the task at hand. Certain as they were of the capacity of literature to represent their marginalized status in society and its apparently boundless ethical objectivity, they placed emphasis on the most excellent techniques to give voice to the marginalized—the oppressed, the demoralized, and the excluded.

Using Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and Edith Wharton’s Roman Fever, this essay shows how literature by such traditionally ‘marginalized’ figures can highlight their status as outsider or ‘other’ in society in such a way that reaches out to encourage awareness and understanding in its mainstream members. From the literary perspective, Glaspell, Wharton, and other feminist advocates have enlightened readers how domestic thoughts expressed itself as a way of bringing about political and social change from the private domain.

In 1916, reintroducing the major components that composed domestic narrative, Glaspell demonstrates in Trifles how in times of political disorder and cultural chaos the American home turns out to be a frightening context for the so-called strength of patriarchal supremacy and how the division between the public and private sphere is but an imagined concept. Trifles is all about the perfect domestic woman, which is embodied by Minnie Wright, whom Glaspell regards as the discursive consequence of patriarchy.

One of the major issues the narrative raises is if the domestic philosophy and its associated gender oppression make females truly defenseless, marginalized, and incapable. One of the foundational components of experience that have set women apart from men has been their allocation to the domestic arena. In the domestic arena women have confronted personal susceptibility to external forces, cultivating a feeling of being tied to outside conditions, of not having control over one’s own life, of feeling bound to overarching forces that affect their endeavors.

Still, in Trifles, Glaspell shows that in this domestic arena women were also capable of building their own space and to maintain their own cultural spheres, as demonstrated by Minnie Wright and accepted by Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale (Glaspell 36): I guess you know about how much he talked himself, but I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it before his wife, though I said to Harry that I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John. Indeed, the felony of Minnie Wright represents a radical transformation of the domestic sphere.

In essence, Trifles reveals the power of women to change their destiny, to resist oppression, and disprove stereotypes. Likewise, Edith Wharton demonstrates in Roman Fever both the marginalization of women and their power to improve their status in society. This marginalization stems from the competition between two women for the love of one man. But feminine power is also demonstrated through this competition. Competitiveness is not only inherent in the world of men; it can also manifest in the world of women, as proven by Mrs.

Ansley and Mrs. Slade. Moreover, in this narrative, Wharton poses issues about the influences of past experiences on present circumstances. She explores how women build their identities through their understanding of the past and the value of their decisions and actions (Wharton 22). Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade have hidden some things that have furnished them a sense of power over time, affecting how each has acted in response to her situation. Through their connection with each other, Wharton discusses the vicious attributes of female competition and the subtle acts that women carry out to attain their goals.

She also discusses how mothers determine their daughters’ future, a theme that reveals the inherent power of women—motherhood. Glaspell’s Trifles and Wharton’s Roman Fever represented one of the most marginalized sector in society—women. They vividly portrayed how women are oppressed and subjugated by the patriarchal society; how women are relegated in the fringes of humanity. But both these writers also showed the power of women to change their fate, to break down the barriers that keep them inferior.

And through literature, women can assert this muted power. Works Cited Glaspell, Susan. Plays by Susan Glaspell. UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Print. Wharton, Edith. Roman Fever and Other Stories. New York: Scribner, 1997. Print.