Susan Glaspell

Susan Glaspell
I really enjoyed reading this play. I honestly can’t remember the last time I actually sat down and read a play. It was interesting to be able to see each different character individually instead of just together in one whole story spun together. There were some okay things in the play and then there were some really interesting things that I read. For one, I really didn’t like the way the men acted towards the women. There was a sarcastic over view to everything that they said to the two women present. It was as if the men thought the women were not intelligent and couldn’t figure anything out for themselves, yet they figured out the motive behind the murder. I really like how the women figured things out by just talking and gossiping. They used their own experiences to relate to Mrs. Wright and why she killed her husband. I would imagine that in that time period women were there to serve their husband and their families. When Mr. Wright broke the bird’s neck and strangled it to death I think Mrs. Wright snapped. She had a lot that was taken from her by him and this was the straw that broke the camels back. Like the two women said in the story; after hearing the bird in the quiet house for so long and then not hearing it anymore drove her crazy. There is only so much one person can take and then they mentally snap and withdraw from the outside world. There are different breaking points for each person and unfortunately, the bird was hers. The choice of the two women to hide what they and found from the sheriff and the attorney shows that they understand, to a point, where Mrs. Wright was coming from and where she had withdrawn to.