The Silent Woman Cannot Be Overlooked

For decades, silent women in theater have been seen as unimportant and overlooked by audiences. Though their characters may seem trivial and of no importance to the story, a silent woman does not equate to a weak woman or even an undeveloped character. In theater, what a character says is just as important as what is not said. Too often have loud women been seen as strong and admirable characters while the silent women are seen as neglected by the playwright and unnecessary to the story. Through research done out of frustration with the assumption that loud women are the only important women in theater, silent women will be analyzed and proven to be impactful in a story, showing that a character’s number of lines does not deem importance or relevance.

In Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman and Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, there are female characters, Linda and Stella, that critics claim are weak and unnecessary to the story; these critics, however, are mistaken. Though Linda and Stella are both characters with few lines, their importance to the play cannot be ignored, for it is their silence that allows the story to unfold. There is little written about Linda and Stella, since they have so often been disregarded, but as one dives into each play, Linda can be seen as an enabler who is afraid of her husband and holds onto the past just as much as he and Stella can be seen as a victim, whose silence should be understood rather than critiqued.

Differing from Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire, there are several plays which depict loud women, with many lines and a rather severe personality who have been analyzed and studied thoroughly by critics, deeming these women feminist and characters of importance in theater. Two of these plays being Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles. Loud women should not be equated to important women. While the importance of Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew and the women in Trifles cannot be denied, they should not be regarded as more important or more favorable than the silent, but impactful characters of Stella and Linda.

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Nikki DeBry has an English degree from Southern Utah University and seeks to bring attention to issues she deems important in the field of literary study. There are many issues overlooked in literary study that need to be considered and Nikki seeks to be the one to consider and bring to light areas of neglect.