Examination of Mrs Wright in Trifles by Susan Glaspell Essay

The character development of Mrs. Peters is driven by her sympathy for Mrs. Wright. At the beginning of “Trifles”, Mrs. Peters’ character is portrayed as anxious and insecure. The evidence the women find reveals that Mrs. Wright was trapped in a neglectful marriage. All of the insightful evidence influences Mrs. Peters to disregard her duties as Mr. Peters’ wife, and conceal the evidence from him. Despite Mrs. Peters original compliant and coy personality, the events throughout the play drive her to boldly protest submitting to the male

Wright to the murder of her husband. At the beginning of the play Mr. Hale acknowledges the males attitudes toward women without knowing. For example he states, “….I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John.” (1001). This clearly signifies the male’s insensitivity to women. This statement that Mr. Hale made referring to John and how he does not care what his wife wanted or did not want does not even trigger the question, how was Mrs. Wright treated by her husband? Women were clearly not has important as the men. The men disregard women’s opinions and don’t give a thought to women’s needs or wants. Mr. Hale was speaking of John, Mrs. Wright’s dead husband in the above example; however Mr. Hale also expresses his insensitivity and arrogant attitude toward women. Mr. Hale states, “Well women are used to worrying over trifles.” (1003). Trifles something that is small, of no consequence, this is how Mr. Hale thinks of women. The things women are concerned with are of no importance, they are petty. This is an obvious illustration of the men’s arrogant and insensitive attitudes toward women.

Susan Glaspell’s one-act play “Trifles” was written in 1916. It was written based on real events. When Glaspell was a reporter, she covered a murder case in a small town in Iowa. Later, she wrote this short play which was inspired by her investigation and what she observed. Glaspell used irony, symbolism, and setting in her creation of the authentic American drama, “Trifles”, to express life for women in a male-dominated society in the early nineteen hundreds.

The county attorney does not give a second thought about how John may have treated his wife. Instead, he’s focusing on Mr. Hale’s testimony regarding the alleged “scared” look on John’s face. The men’s bias is often and openly expressed to the women verbally. In accordance to the dialog of the play, the men show they don’t consider what women say vital or pertinent. The Sheriff fires back, identifying with his partners, “Well, can you beat the woman! Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves.” (Glaspell 1412). The men agree in general about the sheriff’s remark. Mr. Hale comes along and says, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.” (Glaspell 1412). The dialog of the play demonstrates the obliviousness and general absence of appreciation given to women’s comments. Even the sheriff addresses his wife openly as if a woman’s role in the home was insignificant. The prejudice from the men is evident and once a reader or audience starts inquiring about how the men treat women, a pattern is seen regarding the men’s standards. The court attorney kicks his foot against the pots and pans below the sink in the wake of discovering no clean towels, telling the ladies “Not

While talking, the women find a fancy box belonging Mrs. Wright. Inside the box, is what they believe to be Mrs. Wright’s dead pet bird. They realize that “somebody – wrung – its – neck” (1172) Remembering a similar incident in her life, Mrs. Peters says, “When I was a girl – my kitten –there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes, ..If they hadn’t held me back I would have hurt him.” (1172) They place the dead bird back in the box, and then, surprisingly, they hide the box. You can almost see what’s going on in the mind of these two women as they must be imagining poor Mrs. Wright, horrified that her awful husband killed her bird, then she must have snapped and strangled him to end her own suffering.

As the women walk through the house, they begin to get a feel for what Mrs. Wright’s life is like. They notice things like the limited kitchen space, the broken stove, and the broken jars of fruit and begin to realize the day-to-day struggles that Mrs. Wright endured. The entire house has a solemn, depressing atmosphere. Mrs. Hale regretfully comments that, for this reason and the fact that Mr. Wright is a difficult man to be around, she never came to visit her old friend, Mrs. Wright.

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

The story is the same, Mrs. Hale her neighbor and Mrs. Peter’s the sheriff’s wife decided Mrs. Wright’s fate while in the kitchen, they both decided not to turn in the evidence. They discovered the dead canary, they understood the meaning of the bread outside of the breadbox, and the uneven stitches in the cloth, Mrs. Wright had lost her joy the only thing that held her together was the bird. Mr. Wright robbed her of her joy, her freedom, when he killed the bird. Mr. Wright was stern and reclusive, putting Mrs. Wright in a lonesome place where she couldn’t be herself. The ladies hid the bird and after putting the pieces together they knew the dead bird would solve the question of the motive for Mrs. Wright’s murderous act. At the trial when the bird cage came up and what happened to the bird, Mrs. Hale says, “the cat must have got it” (578). The county attorney asked absently, “Is there a cat?” (578). Mrs. Hales says, “She liked the bird and was going to bury it in a pretty box” (579). She felt Mr. Wright had choked the life out of the bird, robbing Mrs. Wright of the last bit of joy, singing and

From the beginning of the story, when Mr.hale described the awkward encounter between him and Mrs.Wright their was something obscure about Mrs.wright. When he was looking for John he came in and saw that Mrs.wright was sitting in her rocking chair pleating her apron, she had a calmness to her composure like she was lost in deep thought. Her responses to where her husband was brief and cold, she gestured to where her dead husband was and went back to her pleating.

"Trifles," a one-act play written by Susan Glaspell, is a cleverly written story about a murder and more importantly, it effectively describes the treatment of women during the early 1900s. In the opening scene, we learn a great deal of information about the people of the play and of their opinions. We know that there are five main characters, three men and two women. The weather outside is frighteningly cold, and yet the men enter the warm farmhouse first. The women stand together away from the men, which immediately puts the men against the women. Mrs. Hale?s and Mrs. Peters?s treatment from the men in the play is reflective of the beliefs of that time. These women, aware of

Throughout the story, the constant criticism of the women’s behavior by the men caused the female characters to develop a kinship and bond; they form a sisterhood. In one of the scenes, the attorney is angry that the towels in the kitchen are dirty. He kicks some pans that are under the sink and accuses Mrs. Wright (the victim’s wife) of not being a good house keeper. Mrs. Hale, one of the women, reminds the attorney that towels get dirty because men’s hands aren’t always clean. At first we suspect that the two women are friends but when the attorney asks her if they were friends Mrs. Hale responds by saying “I’ve not seen much of her of late years. I’ve not been in this house—it’s more than a year.” After the men leave, Mrs. Hale reorganizes the pans that

Hale and Mrs. Peters reminisced on how Mrs. Wright was clearly happier before she was married. Thirty years ago, Mrs. Wright maiden name was Mannie Foster and she was very outgoing and she even sang in the choir. The author is sending a clear message stating that Mrs. Wright was not happy with Mr. Wright. Mr. Wright was a very quiet man who kept to himself and Mrs. Wright wanted a more enjoyable life. She probably thought it was dull, boring marriage. Mrs. Hale also remembers them having a pet bird, but as the women look around, the bird is not in sight. The women actually think the bird was company for her lonesome. The Wrights had no children, so the house was always quiet. Mrs. Hale actually feels guilty as a neighbor for not visiting, because the company of a human presence would have probably kept her sane. She did not like visiting the house because it was so quiet and she was not use to that type of atmosphere. The Hale family had children and their household was always noisy with children. Mrs. Hale says “I dunno what it is, but it’s a lonesome place and always was”, which means it probably would have been uncomfortable to visit her (722). The Wright’s house was also in a dark, hallow place where the road disappeared. With Mr. Wright standoffish personality and Maggie Wright unhappy spirit, the house was not very

Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale associate the Mrs. Wright and the canary. The canary reminds the ladies of Mrs. Wright life as a young girl who was in the choir and loved to sing. Mr. Wright who did not like the canary because he didn’t like anything that sang or mad music and was metaphorically they he killed Minnie Foster, was was the full of life. Minnie was planning to bury to canary which would have be symbolic for her burring a part of herself. Mrs. Wright strangled Mr. Wright which showed that they reversed roles which showed that Mr. Wright became the submissive one and Mrs. Wright became the one who disliked the

The play is based towards the end of the 19th century during the winter season in a traditional rural America farming town. The setting is "the kitchen in the now abandoned farmhouse of John Wright" where "signs of incompleted works" (Glaspell, 1916, p. 5) appear as "signs of incompetent" housekeeping to the men but as signs "of a disturbed consciousness" to the women (Noe, 1995, p. 39). The kitchen is described as