Could Mrs. Wright Be A Tragic Hero?

At the beginning of the short drama, “Trifles,” Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, is painted as timid and submissive wife. She willingly submits herself to the responsibilities she has as a wife. As the play unfolds, Mrs. Peter’s submissiveness begins to diminish. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale work together to uncover the murder of Minnie Wright’s husband. When the women find the evidence, they refuse to share it with the men. Mrs. Peter’s character transforms into a more confident individual over the course of the play.

Question 3, (p. 1135): What are the “trifles” that the men ignore and the two women notice? Why do the men dismiss them, and why do the women see these things as significant clues? What is the thematic importance of these “trifles”?

The third piece of evidence, the mutilated canary, shows the motive for Mrs. Wright to kill her husband. In the story the women find a beautiful box and in the box wrapped in silk was the dead bird which then by closer examination they found had its neck snapped. Based on the box and the silk we can infer that Mrs. Wright loved her bird and would not of broke its neck so that leaves Mr. Wright to do so. Silk is an expensive fabric and usually you put you most prized possessions in it, and the beautiful box also shows that Mrs. Wright loved her canary.

Therefore, Mrs. Wright murdered her husband simply because he murdered her pet bird, and she did so the same way he murdered the bird, making the motive is unethical. Mrs. Hale finds a dead bird with a broken neck inside of Mrs. Wright’s sewing box wrapped in a cloth. Obviously as lonely as Mrs. Wright was the death of her bird would have been catastrophic for her. This is evidence of a motive proving Mrs. Wright killed her husband out of sheer revenge of the death of her bird, it was the last thing he was ever going to take away from her. Along with the broken cage Mrs. Peters states, “Why, look at this door. It’s broke. One hinge is pulled apart” (8). Then Mrs. Hale comments, “Looks like someone must have been rough with it” (8). This is how it happened, Mr. Wright came home from work in

In the kitchen, the dishes are dirty, bread is sitting out on the counter, and everything is in disarray. The County Attorney is disturbed, because the kitchen is not clean. The men assume that Mrs. Wright must have not been a very tidy person. In this time era, men expected women to keep the house tidy and clean, cheerful, and decorated according to the County Attorney in Trifles; he states, “It’s not cheerful. I shouldn’t say she had the homemaking instinct” (1031). Men during this era think that women should only be in the house worrying about what the inside of a house should look. In the County Attorney’s mind, the house should have been warm, clean, organized, and presenting a happy feeling. This is a demonstration of how hard a woman’s life is when she is expected to be when a man’s views think of how a woman should be in the household, for example a slave to cooking, cleaning, and sewing. As shown in the beginning of the play, the men leave the women in the kitchen to gather some of Mrs. Wright’s items she requested as if this is where these women belong. The men go upstairs and out to the farmhouse to investigate for clues for a motive to prove that Mrs. Wright is guilty of the murder of her husband. The men never investigate the kitchen for any clues since they feel there is no significance in the kitchen. The kitchen is an area for women to do cooking and cleaning, which makes them feel there is nothing important in this area. Men

Wright’s trapped and when Mr. Wright wrung it’s neck, Mrs. Wright felt as her husband took her child’s (canary) life. While Mrs. Wright is investigated, Elisa tended herself to the chrysanthemums, like they were all she had.

Freeman employs the canary as a symbolic representation of Louisa’s inward response to Joe. Louisa cannot simply display her anxiety and discomfort brought on by Joe. To do so during the late 1800s would have been erroneous. Women were expected to be meek and timid, not bold and telling. Therefore, Freeman used the canary to show the reader Louisa's true feelings.

The reactions in Trifles reveal to the reader how heavily defined gender roles were in the early twentieth century. The two genders quickly form separate bonds with one another in this play. The men of this time dominate every aspect of this story. They make sarcastic jokes at the women when they start to show concern about things that appeared out of the norm in Mrs. Wright’s house. The first thing they noticed is the broken can goods when the Sheriff says, “Well, you can beat the women! Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves” (Glaspell 1245). This tone of voice reveals how the men did not take the women seriously. They laugh at the women’s idea of trifles but as Phyllis writes, it is “their attentiveness to the "trifles" in her life, the kitchen things considered insignificant by the men, the two women piece together, like patches in a quilt, the

The protagonist, Mrs. Wright, is trying to keep from being accused of murder and this is why she hides the dead bird. The two women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, begin to warm up to what really has happened and throughout the story continue to grow more sympathetic towards Mrs. Wright. The suspense is built up very well trying to figure out whether or not she will get convicted. In the climax, the two women find Mrs. Wright's dead bird and realize what has happened. They are faced with the dilemma of whether or not to turn her in for what they now know she is guilty of. The reader does not find out what happens but is left to assume the best ending. Although the plot of this story is not very exciting, it does achieve its central purpose of showing the women leaving the men out in the cold and uniting together. Throughout the plot and structure they were some instances of irony that were used very well.

Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale both make the choice to protect Mrs. Wright from the men’s investigation. They believe they are making the right decision in not telling the men because they believe that Mrs. Wright was in an abusive relationship and the killing of her canary finally caused her to snap. In Marina Angel’s analysis of “Trifles”, she says “The symbolism is again clear. Minnie Foster ‘was kind of like a bird herself’… But Mr. Wright had been rough with her” (Angel 805). The dead bird that Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale find is a symbol for Mrs. Wright herself,

In the opening of the play it is given that a murder scene is being unfolded. There in the abandoned farmhouse of John Wright stood an attorney, a sheriff and his wife, Hale and his wife, and Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Wright keeps quiet when Hale asked her questions, making her suspicious to be the criminal in this case. As the men and Mrs. Wright are taken upstairs to find evidence, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters snoop around the house to gather Mrs. Wright’s belongings she will be bringing with her to jail. In their findings was a bird cage; which was strange because there was no reckon of Mrs. Wright ever having a bird. As they opened her sewing basket, they noticed something enfolded in silk. There lied the bird, dead, neck wrung. This could be the

Along with plot, character can help develop the theme. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters say that Mrs. Wright used to be lively and social, and used to sing in the choir. However, Mrs. Wright now stays in her home most of the time. The women also say that Mr. Wright was a hard man. He might have made Mrs. Wright give up her friends and her singing. When Mrs. Wright got a canary, Mr. Wright might have strangled it because he did not like its singing. Mrs. Wright might then have murdered Mr. Wright for taking away the one thing she had left.

Wright was emotionless when the county attorney asked what happened to Mr. Wright. Her reply was he is dead. She did not seem to be concerned at all she just sat in the rocking chair pleating her apron. Her husband was hung by a rope while they were both sleeping and Mrs. Wright did not know who did it. That seemed a little suspicious that she did not hear a thing or know a thing considering they slept in the same bed. This would lead the reader to believe she killed her husband, but why? While the sheriff and county attorney investigated the crime scene, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters arrived to get some things that Mrs. Wright had requested them to get for her. While both ladies are there they get a little curious and look around her house. They both began to wonder if Mrs. Wright killed her husband. They then found a bird cage without the bird. That is a little strange. What happened to the bird? Mrs. Peters notices the hinge of the cage is broke. Both ladies go on with their business gathering items requested. While doing this they find the bird wrapped in silk with its neck wrung. Who could do such a thing? Mr. Wright probably killed the bird because he did not like things that made his wife happy so he had to do something about it. This event is what leads the reader to believe Mrs. Wright killed her husband because he killed the only thing that made her happy. Also, once he was dead she did not have to worry about him anymore and was free from the misery of being

Wright murdered her husband. The men didn’t care about the evidence the ladies had found. All the men cared about was to solve the crime. The crime eventually got solved by the women looking at all the unimportant things the men didn’t find important. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale found a broken bird cage, a dead bird in a box wrapped in a silk cloth, frozen fruit and a quilt that Mrs. Wright knotted.

John Wright. Yet, as Mr. Henderson and Mr. Peters choose to ignore these, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters use this disregard to the importance of their femininity to their advantage as they solve the murder case of John Wright. This disregard is displayed when Mr. Henderson asks the sheriff if there is any important evidence downstairs, to which he replies, “Nothing here but kitchen things” (Glaspell 985). Ironically, these so-called “kitchen things,” are vital pieces of evidence that help the women, not the men, to solve Mr. Wright's murder. The first symbol, the frozen preserves, are found in the kicten, busted and destroyed from the cold temperatures. When finding these preserves, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are sympathetic towards Mrs. Wright, as they understand the hard work that the it takes to maintain the temperature for the jars. However, the women understand the the preserves do not only represent Mrs. Wright’s hard work, but they also represent the cold and broken relationship of Mr. and Mrs. Wright. The next, and perhaps the most important symbol is Mrs. Wright’s canary and its cage. As the ladies are examining the empty bird cage, Mrs. Peters notices that the hinge on the door is broken. Mrs. Hale tells her, “Looks as if someone must have been rough with it” (Glaspell 990). The