The Spatiality of Violence in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles
Abstract
The present study, emphasizing the significance of
interdisciplinary approach in interrogating the phenomenon of violence
as comprehensively as possible, explores the concept further through
the insights from recent spatial studies and spatially oriented literature
studies. Although space was traditionally defined either as a distance
between entities or as an empty, natural, and passive container which
functions as a backstage for human action, more recent theorizations,
with especially the spatial turn in the social sciences and humanities
since the late 1960s, have approached the term from more critical,
analytical perspectives. Space has been conceptualized as an active,
dynamic agent participating in social, political and cultural processes.
To investigate the active role space, intersecting with a set of cultural,
economic and political processes, plays in shaping individual and social
experiences, it is significant to go beyond the traditional understanding
of space as a physical entity but to include the imagined and lived
aspects of spatial production as well. Violence, as an equally contested
social phenomenon defying easy theorizations, is a pertinent term
to be considered in relation to space with its physical, imagined and
lived dimensions, and the present study seeks to explore the relations
between these two terms as represented in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles. The
play offers significant insights into the subtle workings of violence in
everyday spaces, and calls for a comprehensive, intersectional approach
in the enquiry of the term rather than focusing on a straightforward
perpetrator and victim binary.
Keywords
violence, spatial turn, Thirdspace, spatiality of violence, Susan Glaspell, Trifles
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