Major Playwrights

Susan Glaspell and Samuel Beckett

Susan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 – July 27, 1948)

Susan Glaspell was born in 1876 at Davenport, Iowa, USA. Growing up to be a teacher but went to a journalist career instead by writing stories for magazines such as Harper’s and The Ladies’ Home Journal. In 1915 she married George Cook and started a new line of career as a play writer. They founded the Provincetown Players on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This is where the play ‘Trifles’ was born, her theme concern more on the feminist issues, the role of women in a family and society, how the opposite sex to perceive the way of thinking between one another and the tension of relationship between men and women.

In ‘Trifles’, she amazingly create a serious discussion about the general nature of men and women, most probably her context on the play was back on the setting of those century but still valid to be argued until today. Men are portrayed as a logic, quite arrogant by the way they put down women’s behaviour, problem solver but insensitive towards the trifles which caused them to fail in finding the solution of the problem. Certainly that it is a critical theme to be explored by the readers and the audience of the play.

Equally important of Susan Glaspell works are the setting that she used, it is mythic; the lonely, depressing and cold landscape of the places evoked certain disturbing emotions on the audience and readers. It is incredible how she pictured the life of those people in the countryside that mostly unknown for many of us. For example in her play ‘Trifles’, the setting was imagined to be cold, still, lonely and empty, these descriptions not only promote certain emotions towards the characters but also a great deal to be studied. Women by general are the sex that will usually need companion, intimate relationship with families and friends; they are talkative and highly sociable. Therefore it is against the nature of women to keep them in a gloomy and empty place, by forcing them to be one role of a person in all the time. In ‘Trifles’, Mr. John Wright was a brutal, hard man that force his wife to become an obedient, silent housewife without even consider the natural characteristics of women.

‘Trifles’ remains as her well-known play but she received the Pulitzer Prize for another play based on the life and family of Emily Dickinson; Alison’s House in 1931. Some other plays that she wrote during her time in Provincetown Players are Women’s Honor (1918), Bernice (1919), Inheritors (1921) and The Verge (1922). She also wrote a number of novels that mostly fiction.

In 1926 she married Norman Matson after the death of her first husband and collaborated with him in the play ‘The Comic Artist’ in 1928, although they was divorced after six years. She died due to a pulmonary embolism on July 27, 1948, at the age of 66 in Provincetown.

Samuel Barclay Beckett (April 13, 1906 – December 22, 1989)

Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin, Ireland in April 13, 1906. His first published work was an essay to defend another writer, James Joyce. He was very much influenced by this writer to the point that he wrote a criticism essay on Joyce’s work and method. In 1927 he won his first literary prize for the poem ‘Whoroscope’. Something interesting about Beckett is that his works are affected by the people he met along his life and the experiences he gained; he is also well-known as a modernist as well as one of the writers of absurdist, which is such a fascinating topic.

His prominent works such as ‘Molloy’, Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Endgame’ carries a theme of the passage of time. Something that we abstractly experiencing without even bother about it, Beckett discussed about the time that will always move no matter how are we using it in his play ‘Waiting for Godot’. While in his novel ‘Molloy’, he argued about the past and present of time. Samuel Beckett has a passion towards words, their sounds, rhythms, shapes, etymologies and its histories. He creatively explored a complex theme such as time by a powerful use of language; the tense in this work portrayed that the past and present are closely related to a person. Not to mention the issue of the end of time is also concerned in another work of him, the ‘Endgame’. Ending of time which is also bring to the end of relationship and life itself. Beckett is trying to picture a view that time is something that constantly overwhelming a human but in the end it matters too little.

Meanwhile he also has another equally major theme as time which is the language. He is trying to express his opinion about language is not a medium to transfer thought but just a bubble to create a form of true thought. This is what seems to be a strange thing to be perceived by readers or audience, but an absurd idea or view will force us to think out of the box and sometimes would have triggered an epiphany. It is an exciting issue because we could have that chance to look on other types of theme rather than just a regular one. One of Beckett view is that humanity actually uses language to block out the thought, though it doesn’t sound logic in certain extent, we may consider his theme as something new be explored for more and this is what would cause a piece of literary work to has its own attraction.

Samuel Beckett is well-known for his strong and independent ideas that were portrayed in his works, which lead him to achieve an honorable award, the Noble Prize for Literature in 1969 along with many other prizes. His works have been translated into over twenty languages as most of them were written in French while for the play ‘Waiting for Godot’, he himself that translate it to English. Beckett died in 1989 due to emphysema and possibly a Parkinson’s disease in December 22, 1989 in Paris.





References

Waterman, Arthur. “Susan Glaspell (1876-1948).” Home page. 2 November 2013. <http://college.cengage.com/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/glaspell.html>

“Samuel Beckett” The ChaosTheory Theme Blog, April 2009. Web. 2 November 2013.

Annenberg Learner. “About the author—Susan Glaspell.” 2013. Web. 2 November 2013. <http://www.learner.org/interactives/literature/notread/author.html>

GradeSaver. "Biography of Susan Glaspell | List of Works, Study Guides & Essays". GradeSaver, 2 November 2013 Web. 2 November 2013. <http://www.gradesaver.com/author/susan-glaspell/>

The European Graduate School (Graduate and Postgraduate Studies). “SAMUEL BECKETT – BIOGRAPHY”. 2012. Web. 2 November 2013. <http://www.egs.edu/library/samuel-beckett/biography/>

GradeSaver. "Biography of Samuel Beckett | List of Works, Study Guides & Essays". GradeSaver, 2 November 2013 Web. 2 November 2013. <http://www.gradesaver.com/author/samuel-beckett/>

Trifles

Susan Glaspell (Trifles: Explorations of the text)

2. What clues lead the women to conclude that Minnie Wright killed her husband?

The women first saw the uneven sewing as if it is a sign of confusion, when Mrs. Hale says that “it looks as if she didn't know what she was about”, Minnie Wright seems to be totally lost her concentration and not thinking in a straight way. Then, Mrs. Peters saw a bird-cage with one hinge of it is pulled apart, they were thinking that someone must have been rough on it, though they have not mention directly who is responsible for that, the readers are able to judge it through. Mr. John Wright is always portrayed as a hard man; “Just to pass the time of day with him-(Shivers.) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone,” says by Mrs. Hale, from this there is a great probability that he could have been that cold towards the bird as well.

The last clue is the discovery of the dead bird with its neck on the other side as if someone wrung it. Such a horrible doing couldn't be done by Minnie Wright which according to Mrs. Hale “real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and-fluttery”. Someone like her wouldn't torture the bird, but Mr. John Wright could have done that. On the whole, it is not impossible for Minnie Wright to kills her husband over such a great torture and suffering she have to endure.

3. How do the men differ from the women? from each other?

The men seems to be looking for solid evidence and reason for a murder to happen, that if someone would killed a person, it must been have well planned, involve struggling, violence scene and with a possible weapon. They didn't realize that it was a woman that is the main suspect here, so they must think like woman in order to find out that one woman don’t need a violence act to kill a person. While the women, they didn't exactly there to look for evidence but their innate behavior lead them to the real motive for a wife to kill a husband. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are only wondering around the kitchen, talking and minding their own business, but not to reveal who is the murderer but why murdering a person.

Men here is a problem solver, they went up and down the house, going out to the barn, thinking what a murderer chose to use and why John Wright didn't attack the person back even though he had a gun in the house. Their role here is to think of a solution towards question and confusion of the whole case. However, the women in ‘Trifles’ using their instinct to react over something, and thought deeper over the situation, not to look for a solution but to picture themselves at the same condition. This had helps them to find out what cause Minnie Wright to attempt murder.

County Attorney in this drama shows so much curiosity to find out more about the case, he’s been leading most of the conversation regarding the flow of the event. Even so, he is constantly criticizing the women, Mrs. Wright for having a messy kitchen, Mrs. Hale for wondering about the knot and quilt and Mrs. Peters for worrying Mrs. Wright preserves. He is a young man, his experiences over life hasn't broaden his thought yet, so he didn't aware that he was wrong to left out women characters when investigating a woman suspect. While Hale is a bit passive though he did contribute to the opening of the investigation, he is obedient towards authority of County Attorney and Sheriff. The way Mrs. Hale talks to Mrs. Peters, it could be assume that she and her husband Hale having a pretty much a normal family routine. Sheriff didn't very much says anything over the cases but acknowledge his wife to married to the law by the fact of marrying him, but similarly to County Attorney and Hale, he also thought that women could only been worrying about the preserves.

4. What do the men discover? Why do they conclude “Nothing here but kitchen things”? What do the women discover?

The men discover that there is a gun in the house, there is no sign of anyone having come from the outside, and the rope used to kill John Wright seems to be his own rope. They manage to find out the whole process of the murder but they can’t figure out the reason of doing it, County Attorney says, “a thing that would connect up with this strange way of doing it”. They conclude that “Nothing here but kitchen things” because they now sees Mrs. Minnie Wright as a murder suspect, they didn't realize that before that she was a housewife of a farmer, a normal woman with a normal everyday routine which definitely will involve the use of the kitchen. The men assume that a murder should constantly act suspiciously unusual and horrible; they left the fact that even a murderer is a human being.

The women incredibly manage to discover not only the motives for Mrs. Minnie Wright to attempt a murder but also the cruelty of oppression by John Wright towards his wife. The uneven quilting and the stillness of the kitchen shows how much messy the mind of Minnie Wright, she was depressed by loneliness and quietness of her home and life. The broken bird-cage is a solid prove how awful the way John Wright treat Minnie Wright by damaging something that would never give him any harm by any sense. He obviously must have killed the bird too, a singing bird that reflect the character of Minnie Foster, it is as if killed a part of his wife. Though it is never being directly spoken by the characters but it is clear that Minnie Wright wouldn't have killed anyone if she were to live like she did before her marriage.