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Brianna Schuster's podcast analyzes Susan Glaspell's play "Trifles," focusing on women supporting each other in the face of male prejudice. The theme of women's perspectives being misunderstood by men is highlighted, with Mrs. Peters evolving to understand the importance of sisterhood. The play contrasts men and women's perceptions of a crime scene, emphasizing the victimization of women and the need for sisterhood support. It critiques societal inequalities and the oppression faced by women, advocating for equal attention and respect for women's perspectives. Hello, I'm Brianna Schuster and welcome to my podcast where I discuss my analysis of the play Trifles by Susan Glasswell through discussing and making connections to a character that I found most relevant. The most prominent thing that stood out to me was the two women share their perspectives with each other and find that they are much more understanding of each other and even as a woman not present on stage. I want to point out a theme emphasized by the play because I think it could be relevant to social and political conditions today. There is a trend where the men in each of the women's lives, personally and impersonally, are misunderstanding and so one might interpret the theme of this play to be about women supporting each other in the face of prejudice by men, as seen by how the women hide the crime scene evidence from the men, which they are able to do because the evidence is clear for the men to see, but still they are not able to interpret it as such without the insight from the women because the men are so misunderstanding of a woman's perspective. In other words, the men are looking for evidence that would have been left by a man, which they will not find in this crime scene since it was a woman who did the murder. Analyzing this theme is interesting because of one of the woman characters, Mrs. Peters. She has a changing perspective at the beginning of the play. She shares more so with the men, as shown on page 685 where she says, I don't think we ought to touch things. And on page 683 where she says, it's no more than their duty. And this is why Mrs. Hale is better able to interpret the evidence compared to Mrs. Peters because she is mainly has the woman perspective. However, as Mrs. Peters absorbs what Mrs. Hale is saying, she comes to understand the woman-centered perspective and realizes that she does actually share in that perspective. As evidenced on page 688, she says, if they hadn't held me back, I would have hurt him. And realizing her own personal experience as a woman, she realizes how separate and misunderstood it is from the men. Further, she realizes, along with Mrs. Hale, that they have all made adjustments to themselves to earn a favorable perspective of the men. But they realize this is wrong as they notice that comparatively they were happier, freer versions of themselves in the past when their lives were more separate from the men and they were more connected with each other as friends. What I found interesting was that the three men are investigating the crime scene in a very unified and connected way as they share a more similar perspective and even literally they are all present on stage. Comparatively, there are three women investigating the crime scene, but they do it in a more distant way as they do not immediately realize a shared perspective between them and even literally many is not physically present on stage. Further, the women are not investigating the same crime scene as the men. The men are perceiving a murder, which is a crime under the law made by men, whereas the women are perceiving a spiritual death, which is a crime under the law made by sisterhood. For the men, the victim is the man and the offender is the woman, whereas for the women, the victim is the woman and the offender is the man. Page 689 says, but you know juries when it comes to women, which the play uses in allusion to the fact that the law favors men's perspectives. This further highlights the opposing perspectives between men and women. More specifically, by using the women's perspectives as the focus, the play is emphasizing the victimization of the women. Among the characters, Mrs. Peter best represents the scene because she has the most round perspective. She directly relates to the isolation and grief of many because of personal experience with death, but also to that of Mrs. Hale because she is isolated from the women and the local community because she does not even have childhood friendships with the women, which isn't her choice. And this is different from Mrs. Hale because she is isolated by choice, which now she realizes is a regretful one. As well as being more understanding of and connected to the women's perspective compared to the other characters, Mrs. Peters is also arguably more supportive and understanding of the men than the other women characters. Conclusively, because she chooses between her perspectives to support the sisterhood as evidence for how she hides evidence at the end of the play, when she says on page 687, well not now, the play is saying that the sisterhood is the more important perspective because it is the inferior one. I think the play is saying that both men and women matter, but the women deserve more attention because, unfortunately, they tend to be oppressed by the opposing perspectives and even suppress themselves to favor the oppressive one. It's not necessarily the disparity that matters between the perspectives, but that the inequality does, that one is favored over the other, it's saying. And that it's wrong because of the grief and isolation that the women experience because of not being able to have the connection to a sisterhood when the men get to have a brotherhood. And it's not wrong that the brotherhood exists, but that's the way it oppresses the sisterhood does. And this play, this theme, is still relevant today because it's arguable that the disparity between the brotherhood and sisterhood still exists today.