An Analysis Of Susan Glaspell 's ' Trifles '

Trifles was written in the early 1900's by Susan Glaspell. This occurred far before the women's movement. Women were generally looked upon as possessions to their husbands. Their children, all wages, and belongings were property of their husbands. In Glaspell's story it is easily depicted as to what role the men and women portrayed in society at this time.

The play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is type of murder mystery that takes place in the early 1900’s. The play begins when the sheriff Mr. Peters and county attorney Mr. Henderson come to attempt to piece together what had happen on the day that Mr. Wright was murder. While investigating the seen of the murder, they are accompanied by the Mr. Hale, Mrs. Hale and Mr. Peters. Mr. Hale had told that Mrs. Wright was acting strange when he found her in the kitchen. After taking information from Mr. Hale, the men leave the women in the kitchen and go upstairs at seen of the murder. The men don’t realize the plot of the murder took place in the kitchen.

Symbols are important, especially in literature. They have been known to inspire hope and life, in turn inspiring some of the most profound actions in the history of the world. Yet, humanity’s statement to symbols goes beyond us finding meaning in innominate or non-human objects. People assign humanity into objects, almost a part of themselves. This concept is clearly demonstrated in Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles. The work contains many element of symbolism that make important and relieving comments on the characters of the play and the themes of the story.

Murder, torture, and mayhem are merely three of the unique problems that can be found throughout the one act play Trifles by Susan Glaspell. The writer opens up the story by explaining the situation of Mrs. Wright, a middle aged woman who is being accused of murdering her husband. The crime scene is a mess. A sheriff, the prosecuting attorney and their wives are looking in to the gruesome death that occurred upstairs in the Wright household. It is immediately found that the men focus their attention to the area around the body of Mr. Wright in search of evidence. However, it is the women begin to stumble across the clues that may lead to Mrs. Wright’s persecution. As more evidence is found we are lead to believe that Mrs. Wright did, in fact, kill her husband. By the end of the play the reader is still left wondering, why? Was it a case of self-defense, or is there something much deeper going on? Once a full understanding is reached, it becomes apparent that the only basis that should be used for dropping the charges of this case should be built on the notion of mental insanity. Mrs. Wright clearly demonstrates psychological tendencies that are symptomatic of Dissociative Disorders (Ben-Zvi, 145). With an evaluation of her past life, her behavior immediately after killing her husband, and evidence that is later found by the women, it becomes clear that Mrs. Wright was stricken with a Dissociative Disorder.

The audience and characters assume that Minnie is guilty, but with due motivation. “Two housewives, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, accompanying their husbands who are investigating the murder of a man by his wife, discover in the kitchen the clues which indicate the motive of the murderess” (Alkalay-Gut 1). The audience assumes that Minnie’s solitude, imposed on her by her husband, has lead her to be depressed. “Alienated from her husband, powerless and silenced by the circumstances of her marriage, and isolated from her neighbors, Minnie is an unseen woman long before she murders John Wright” (Noe 16). What if Minnie’s solitude was self-inflicted? Just as Mrs. Hale could have visited Minnie, Minnie could have visited Mrs. Hale and other women in the area, but chose not to. The audience assumes that John Wright treats Minnie coldly or harshly. Mrs Hale says, “No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird—a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too.” (Glaspell 1391). “Her life has been made miserable by an individual who has complete control of her” (Alkalay-Gut 3). What

The prominence of the patriarchal society in Susan Glaspell's one act play, "Trifles," differentiates the roles of the two genders that society demanded them to undertake. In the 1900s, countless women were restricted within their home while the men left working to financially support the family. The head of the family and society is the man, and the play clearly depicts the limitations women had in this patriarchal society. Throughout the play, the women defy the patriarchal expectations. Thus, Glaspell reveals the patriarchy, as a restrictive force, assigns women unwanted roles.

Hale her neighbor says that the only time Minnie wright seemed happy was when she was not married. Mrs. Hale says, “I heard that she used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie foster. But with thirty years of marriage, Mrs. Wright is now worried about her canned preserves freezing, and not having her apron whilst she is in jail. Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife suggested that Mrs. Wright wanted her apron so that she can “feel more natural”; because that is what she is use to.

Susan Glaspell’s play was written in 1916. The main setting of the play is in the kitchen and everything surrounding shows the women’s lives. Trifles mean something of little or no importance. The women in this society are seen as the trifles, which has no importance. Only found in the kitchen.

The play, “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell was first performed on August 8th, 1916 and is based on the accounts of a murder trial on which she attended as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News (Gainor 38). The story of the play is based on a woman named Margaret Hosack from Iowa, who was on trial for killing her husband due to his abusive behavior towards her. In order to understand the play, it is important to understand the author’s background, as it relates to the main themes of the play: gender dominance, confinement and loneliness. Susan Glaspell, from Davenport, Iowa is only the second woman to win a Pulitzer Prize and much of her writing is strongly feminist, dealing with society’s view of women and male dominance.

In the short play ”Trifles” written by Susan Glaspell she tells the story of two very different investigations and insights into a murder of a Mr. John Wright and his wife . The way she tells us the story comes from two different perspectives. The male characters in the play carry on their investigation and come to some conclusions while their female counterparts carry on an investigation of their own. The play opens with the arrival of the characters in Mr. and Mrs. Wrights kitchen, quickly recounting the events that led to the discovery of Mr. Wrights hanging. The male characters then go upstairs to explore a motive for the hanging while the women look around downstairs for things to take back to Mrs. Wright while she is in custody. Glaspell uses the symbols of an unkempt home, a bird and birdcage, and an unfinished quilt to

“Trifles” is a one act play written by Susan Glaspell in 1916, which was first performed on August 8th by the Provincetown Players in Provincetown, Massachusetts at the Wharf Theater. The author, Susan Glaspell, was born on July 1, 1876 in Davenport, Iowa. Over her lifetime she had become proficient in many different professions: Playwright, Actress, Novelist, and Journalist. For her works, she won an American Pulitzer Prize in 1931. The Provincetown Players was founded by Susan Glaspell and her husband, George Cram Cook. This was the first modern American theater company. Most of her works centered on current issues at the time such at gender roles between males and females. Susan Glaspell was not the typical woman of her time, she decided to go to school and get herself an education and find herself a her own career instead of waiting around for a husband. In 1899, Glaspell graduated from Drake University in Iowa and found herself a job as a journalist for the Des Monies Daily newspaper. The play Trifles was based upon a story that Glaspell reported on when she was a journalist.

In the one-act play, Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, John Wright has been strangled to death with a rope while sleeping in his isolated farmhouse and the main suspect is his wife, Minnie. The County Attorney, Sheriff Peters and Mr. Hale look through the house for clues to find the motive for the murder, but the real detectives turn out to be Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. Throughout the play, the men make fun of the women for worrying about trivial household items, like Mrs. Wright’s unfinished quilt, but their attentiveness to these details is what allow them to find and understand the motive. Even though it is clear that Minnie Wright murdered her husband John, the circumstances surrounding that crime compels Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters to conspire and protect Minnie from the injustice of the exclusive legal system.

A trifle is something that has little value or importance, and there are many seeming "trifles" in Susan Glaspell's one-act play "Trifles." The irony is that these "trifles" carry more weight and significance than first seems to be the case. Just as Glaspell's play ultimately reveals a sympathetic nature in Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, the evidence that the men investigators fail to observe, because they are blind to the things that have importance to a woman, reveals the identity of the murderer and are, therefore, not really "trifles," after all. Thus, the title of the play has a double-meaning: it refers, satirically, to the way "trifling" way some men perceive women, and it also acts as an ironic gesture to the fact that women are not as "trifling" as these men make them out to be. This paper will analyze setting, characters, plot, stage directions, symbolism, themes and genre to show how Glaspell's "Trifles" is an ironic indictment not of a murderess but rather of the men who push women to such acts.

From the beginning of the play, you know that Mrs. Wright is angry and depressed. Between a conversation with Hale, Mrs. Wright has no emotion about the death of her husband; Hale: “Can’t I see John?” “No”, she says, kind o’dull like.