Standing Up For Their Rights

3 Pages 706 Words

Standing Up for Their Rights



Every generation has its issues whether it be war, politics or civil interests. As a society we tend to express our emotions and thoughts towards these issues in literature. Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles”, and Maya Angelou’s “Graduation in Stamps” are two works that express the author’s feelings to a particular issue. Published in 1969 “Graduation in Stamps” spoke out against prejudice and fought for equality for the African American community. “Trifles” which was published in 1916 supported women’s rights. Both pieces of literature focused on a particular topic and expressed the opinions of the corresponding author.
Each work had to be written to support the time period and situation of the author. Mrs. Angelou was much more outspoken than Mrs. Glaspell because of the general protection given to her by the Bill of Rights, and because she was probably wasn’t the highest on the hit list of anti-black groups. She also didn’t have to be careful because she didn’t stand to hurt her family, like Mrs. Glaspell did. Maya Angelou’s entire family was black, so her involvement in civil rights served to benefit all of them. On the other hand, Susan Glaspell was the only woman in her family, other than her mother, so she stood the chance of publicly embarrassing her husband and potentially her father. The humiliation she chanced could lead to the loss of her husband’s job, and the failure of her father’s business. In order to prevent the destruction of her family she chose a more subtle approach than Mrs. Angelou.
Glaspell’s decision to use subtlety offered a challenge. She had to be ambiguous enough to save her family from embarrassment while also conveying her message. Using a well chosen tone, symbols and other writing techniques, she created “Trifles”. She used a dead bird to represent the freedom that her husband stole from her. He took away her one o...