INSANITY AND MURDER Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

INSANITY AND MURDER - Essay Example Women were further forced into the stereotypical passive housewife role† (Frick, 2002). Those women who found this role difficult to assume were often the subjects of harsh treatments or otherwise controlling methods that were designed to bring them back into their socially accepted, and therefore considered natural, roles. â€Å"Cures included bed rest, seclusion, bland food, refrain from mental activities (such as reading), daily massage, and sensory depravation. Though these treatments do not seem too appalling, they were comparable to solitary confinement and would often drive a woman to further insanity† (Frick, 2002). These are the types of women who are often seen gracing the pages of late nineteenth and early 20th century writers such as William Faulkner and Susan Glaspell. In stories like â€Å"A Rose for Emily† (Faulkner) and â€Å"Trifles† (Glaspell), women can be seen to be driven to insanity by the controlling actions of the men. Faulkner introduces Miss Emily Grierson as a woman who has never been provided an opportunity to become comfortable or familiar with the world outside of her father’s old world ideals. â€Å"None of the young men were quite good enough to Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as a tableau; Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door† (437). This created a situation in which Miss Emily â€Å"got to be thirty and was still single† (437), forced to live in her maidenhood forever and lacking any connection to the rest of the world. Miss Emily’s inability to relate to the real world outside her fantasy is first manifested completely when she refused to acknowledge her father’s change of state upon his death. â€Å"Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of