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
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/>
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