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Brittney Cannon
Prof. McCormick
American Drama
27 March 2015
Silent Aggression, Passive Resistance
Women will never be as successful as men, because they have no wives to advise them.
-Dick Van Dyke
Women in America remain an emergent population on the precipice of equality. The
preexisting political culture does not allow them to reap equal opportunities, but the voices
of the women have been raised and demand the rights that are afforded them in a free
nation. Fresh from the ratification of women’s suffrage in 1920, literature in the early 20th
century reflects the continued struggle of women to transcend their preexisting limitations
and identify as an individual with goals and life plans independent of a husband, an
aspiration made exceptionally challenging by the social sovereignty of men that
perpetuates a culture of silence in women. This theme is reflected in Susan Glaspell’s
Trifles and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun through strong female leads who
confront difficult decisions that force them to behave counter intuitively to the
expectations of their male-dominated culture that stifles their voices, forcing them to
express their resistance to the roles placed on them passively through the modes they are
allowed. Through the muted depiction of female protagonists, the texts reflect the
challenges facing women as they explore their identities and establish a new order in their
previously strict social hierarchies.
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Representations of the emergent female class in both plays are dismissed and
underestimated by their male counterparts. The women in Trifles are disregarded
throughout the entirety of the play, the men never aware of the conclusions and evidence
that they surface through their exploration of Mrs. Wright’s kitchen. In front of the women,
Hale chides, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles,” directly devaluing and
criticizing their character (Glaspell 515). In fact, the entirety of the play takes place in one
setting: the kitchen. Other locations are alluded to, as the men come and go within the
kitchen, but the women remain in the room in which their housewives duties take place,
never leaving the kitchen. Surprisingly enough, the woman who most directly challenges
the social expectations of women is Mrs. Wright. In order to maintain the suffocated status
of women, men ensure that “women are irrelevant, except for sex, motherhood, and
service” (Scott 4). By perpetuating the stereotypical duties of housewives through casual
expectations and asserting their roles as financial providers, men ensure that their elevated
status remains secure. Mrs. Wright overturns all of these norms by murdering her
husband, as “women who kill evoke fear because they challenge societal constructs of
femininity—passivity, restraint, and nurture” (Ben-Zvi 142). Murder is antithetical to the
passive, unthreatening qualities desired of women. Thus, Mrs. Wright is not only punishing
her husband for his suggested abuse, but by extension also retaliating against the
principles and mindset that allowed her to be forced into such a situation. Likewise,
Beneatha in Hansberry’s work attempts to establish herself as a person of substance, but is
vehemently dismissed. George, one of her two suitors, a well-to-do black man attempting to
perfect his assimilation into white culture, accuses her studies to be pointless and her self-
discovery tedious, after he expresses his annoyance at her insistence to simply talk:
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George: … I want you to cut it out, see—The moody stuff, I mean. I don’t like
it. You’re a nice-looking girl… all over. That’s all you need, honey, forget the
atmosphere. Guys aren’t going to go for the atmosphere—they’re going to go
for what they see. Be glad for that. Drop the Garbo routine. It doesn’t go
with you. As for myself, I want a nice—(groping)—simple (thought-fully)—
sophisticated girl… not a poet—O.K.? (Hansberry 795)
Murchison directly explains her worth in his eyes to be simply a pretty face, and that she is
not expected to have thoughts or ideals. Beneatha is constantly criticized for being too
outlandish for exploring her identity and has to exert herself in order to be acknowledged
or receive any kind of regard for who she is and what is meaningful in her life. While the
women in Trifles accept their abuse and are passive in their response, Beneatha proves
even an outspoken voice is powerless in the male dominated social culture, when her
future is ripped from her and she laments, “While I was sleeping in that bed, in there,
people went out and took the future right out of my hands! And nobody asked me, nobody
consulted me—they just went out and changed my life!” (Hansberry 806). Despite Lena’s
insistence that a portion of her husband’s insurance check be reserved for Beneatha’s
schooling, when she entrusted the economic decisions to her son, she deferred judgment to
Walter. In “The Drama of Lynching,” Gourdine explores the significance of this abdication,
explaining, “Walter feels oppressed by his inability to find any work except that of driver
and chauffeur, and he feels emasculated by Lena’s running of the family” (540). Walter’s
success is pivotal to the survival of the family, as without him, the collection of women have
absolutely no voice in society. When she surrenders to Walter, Lena discredits her
previous decisions, implying that his status as male head of household supersedes herrole
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as matriarch, giving him the confidence to gamble Beneatha’s future, as his aspirations took
precedence over his sister’s. Consequently, when Walter fails, it is the strength of the
women that keep the hope alive within the desolate family. These women are constantly
having their identities disrespected and subverted by the men in their communities, who
place themselves in much higher regard.
A subordinate community exists between the women created by mutual
understanding and acknowledgment of similar conditions. Trifles acknowledges this
kinship directly, while the familiarity is shown more than it is spoken of in A Raisin in the
Sun. The male leads in Trifles mock this kinship, quipping “Ah, loyal to your sex, I see” after
the women are quick to defend Mrs. Wright’s cleaning habits (515). However, it is exactly
this kinship that prevent the women from sharing their findings with the men: “COUNTY
ATTORNEY: Something to show—something to make a story about—a thing that would
connect up with this strange way of doing it----(The women’s eyes meet for an instant.)”
(Glaspell 519). The significance of the women’s eyes meeting alludes to a secret bond with
this woman that they admittedly are not very close with; strong enough to cover their
knowledge of her guilt in her husband’s murder. Their only source of loyalty to this woman
is the familiar exploits in the strange kitchen, and the sympathies they have for her
domestic efforts, such as Mrs. Hale looking pityingly upon the broken jar of cherries and
reminiscing on her own efforts in making jam (516). The kinship in A Raisin in the Sun
exists between the women of the family, including those that are not blood but are relatives
by law. They connect through the exasperated manner in which they tolerate and handle
Walter’s reckless passion, and their tedious attitude toward the endless onslaught of
challenges encountered as they attempt to keep the family afloat and together. Following
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an unpleasant encounter with a troublesome neighbor, the women of the family exchange
sarcastic quips, illuminating their most comfortable channel of conversation and familial
interaction:
RUTH: If ignorance was gold…
MAMA: Shush. Don’t talk about folks behind their backs.
RUTH: You do.
MAMA: I’m old and corrupted. (Beneatha enters.) You was rude to Mis’
Johnson, Beneatha, and I don’t like it at all.
BENEATHA (at her door): Mama, if there are two things we, as a people, have
got to overcome, one is the Klu Klux Klan—and the other is Mrs. Johnson.
(Hansberry 797-8)
This scene is the only point in the play where all three female leads are seen in the same
room together. While it is apparent that the women have a unique bond through the
clandestine way in which they take care of the family without Walter realizing that he is not
the figure keeping the family afloat, it is also clear that the women are not accustomed to
voicing their affections. Beneatha may be direct and insistent upon her voice being heard,
but even she is callous and guarded in her expressions of camaraderie with the other
women in her family, speaking heavily to the culture of silence imposed on women.
The most poignant mode through which the women have been stifled since the
ratification of the 19th Amendment is their impotence in politics. It is a direct way through
which the men can undermine the implications of the Amendment, showing that it is a
formality and women do not, in practice, have an actual voice in regards to the law. In the
preexisting circumstances of American government, politics is “a man’s world,” where
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“men not only write the rules of the game, they are the judges of the way women play”
(Scott 4). With their long-standing dominance in both individuals in leadership positions
as well as experience, men are the natural choice for government representation. However,
this cycle needs to be broken, as it keeps the women’s voice out of the legal realm. In order
for women to be adequately represented, a leader with women’s best interests as their
main concern is necessary in government. The only leader with such a priority can by
definition only be a woman, as only a woman can understand the needs of her
demographic. With men dominating the political spheres, the women attack the glass
ceiling with any and all approaches in their arsenal. Beneatha does so by refusing to accept
the shame that the suffocating culture attempts to restrict her with. Rather than
surrendering to the pressures of her circumstances and assimilating to the best of her
ability, as George exemplifies, she celebrates her heritage:
You are standing in your splendid ignorance talking about people who were
the first to smelt iron on the face of the earth! (Ruth is pushing her through
the door.) The Ashanti were performing surgical operations when the
English—(Ruth pulls the door to, with Beneatha on the other side, and smiles
graciously at George. Beneatha opens the door and shouts the end of the
sentence defiantly at George)—were still tattooing themselves with blue
dragons! (Hansberry 791)
While Ruth takes on the role of the woman with shame and reverence for the social
stratum above her, Beneatha refuses that distinction and speaks her mind as an equal, even
vocalizing her idolization of her culture that is during her time viewed as an unwanted
threat to the white majority. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are much more discrete in their
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rebellion against the sexist legal system; in fact, they never vocalize their duplicitous sin of
omission. Rather, they dance around the unspoken understanding that they have
discovered plentiful evidence criminalizing Mrs. Wright, and decide to enforce justice on
their own judgment. The laws that would never have protected Mrs. Wright from the abuse
of her husband are deemed unsatisfactory by the women, who in turn reject its
effectiveness in prosecuting the wife who would have no defense in court. Through their
silence, the women are manipulating the law and silently rebelling against its unbalanced
application on men and women. These two plays contrast in their assessment of the
culture of silence, as A Raisin in the Sun demonstrates the unheard cries of women while
Trifles depicts the powerful statements that women can make with their silence.
Women in literature following the 19th Amendment, while guaranteed a vote,
struggle with how to raise their voice in the suppressive, male-dominated culture. While
they search for their identities and independence, men actively dismiss their efforts as
arbitrary and unimportant. The women of the Younger family struggle to keep the family
afloat as Walter, Jr. recklessly gambles with their future, believing that to be his right as the
oldest living male in the family. In Trifles, the women are seen with even less consideration
from the men in their communities, who mock the tasks that men themselves have imposed
as expectations of them. However, their influence is above even the law, as they take it
upon themselves to keep their fellow housewife out of prison, withholding damning facts
that was only evident through examination of the “trifles” with which Mrs. Wright occupied
her time. Both texts speak to the power of women and the necessity for continued battling
for the equality and respect that women deserve and have been promised in the 19th
Amendment.
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Works Cited:
Ben-Zvi, Linda. “ ‘Murder, She Wrote’: The Genesis of Susan Glaspell’s ‘Trifles’.”
Theatre Journal 44.2 (1992): 141-62.
Glaspell, Susan. “Trifles.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Drama. 7th Ed.
Jacobus, Lee A. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013. 513-9.
Gourdine, Angeletta KM. “The Drama of Lynching in Two Blackwomen’s Drama, or
Relating Grimké’s Rachel to Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.” Modern Drama 41.4
(1998): 533-45.
Hansberry, Lorraine. “A Raisin in the Sun.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to
Drama. 7th Ed. Jacobus, Lee A. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013. 774-811.
Scott, Hilda. “Introduction: Women in Politics.” International Journal of Sociology 8.3
(1978): 3-11.
