The Spatiality of Violence in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles

Authors : Şemsettin TABUR

Pages : 93-109

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Publication Date : 2023-06-14

Article Type : Research Paper

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