In both A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, and
Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, the focus is on women as they exist within the
confines of a man-dominated society, and how they respond to extenuating circumstances presented
in their marriages.
Both stories have a common theme of women who
have been repressed and controlled by husband and societal
expectations.
Both women take steps to address the control exerted
over them, but the actions they take are very different.
And in both
plays, there are women who come to a startling awakening of a woman's true "lot in life," which
they had not understood before. In A Doll's House, the awareness comes to
Nora, the major character in her story; but in "Trifles," the awareness comes to two women left
to bear witness to the abuse of their neighbor.
In A
Doll's House, Nora is married to Torvald, a pompous, egotistical is a control-freak
who believes he must oversee every aspect of Nora's life.
For
example, when they attend the masquerade ball, Torvald helps choose Nora's costume and then
"orchestrates" how they will make their dramatic exit, even while living out a sexual fantasy of
secretly sneaking off with a wild peasant dancing girl—rather than his wife. Nora is treated like
a doll (posed, manipulated), but finally realizes that Torvald has no regard for her as the
determined woman who was willing to do anything to save his life when he fell seriously
ill.
By the end of the play, in which Nora has lived through hell
for the sake of Torvald's well-being, all he cares about is whether his
reputation will be damaged by what she has done. Finally, Nora awakens as if from a deep sleep,
sees Torvald and herself more clearly, and deals with her captivity in this bizarre marriage by
leaving him.
In Trifles, our main character is
Mrs. Wright who has been abused mentally and emotionally by a husband who has destroyed the joy,
laughter, and even the music that filled her life before they married. He has taken everything
that made her unique and crushed it like a bug underfoot. He even goes so far as to break the
neck of a canary Mrs. Wright had, which had brought happiness and song back into her life. With
the intentional killing of the bird, Mrs. Wright seems to finally break and she murders her
husband while he sleeps.
In the final comparison, Nora realizes that
she has been poorly treated by her husband and unfair, double-standards that society has placed
upon women—be seen and not heard, submit to your husbands, and live socially upright
lives.
Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters who come to Mrs. Wright's house to
gather some things for her while in jail, notice how casually the men make fun of the hard work a
woman does to keep a household running. They refer to these chores as "trifles," though they reap
the rewards of this work. They make fun of the quilt Mrs. Wright has been sewing. They are
boorish and insensitive.
When the women find the dead bird waiting
to be buried, they realize how terrible Mrs. Wright's existence must have been. After witnessing
the "neanderthal-like" behavior of the men gathering evidence against Mrs. Wright, they decide to
champion Mrs. Wright in small ways. They hide the dead bird, probably the catalyst that brought
about Mrs. Wright's "psychotic break," so there is no new evidence to convict her, and collect
things to bring her some little comfort in jail.
However, the women
are changed people. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters see the need to stick together, and find themselves
alienated from the society of men who can be so uncaring and dismissive of the women who partner
them in life.
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