I Sleep Sound By Susan Glaspell

First, looking around the kitchen, the women notice that Minnie had left a lot of things “half done.” There was a table with “one half… wiped clean, the other half messy,” and a bucket of sugar half-filled. Minnie must have kept getting interrupted from her work. Maybe it was her husband or maybe it was her own thinking. The women know that to leave something unfinished it must have been something very importimportantnt. The second piece of evidence the women find is the log cabin quilt that Minnie had been working on. All of the quilt squares are sewn “nice and even”, except for one. The square looks as if Minnie “didn’t know what she was about.” It seems as if Minnie was nervous while sewing it. The women find it weird that Minnie was so careless on that square, when she was so meticulous in sewing the others. The final, and possibly most important, piece of evidence is the dead bird that the women found in Minnie’s sewing basket. Mr. Hale, we assume, “wrung its neck,” and it was something that Minnie really cared about. Mrs. Peters remembers a time when, “ there was a boy (who) took a hatchet,” to her kitten. She knows what it feels like to want to hurt someone who hurt something you care about. In the end, the women decide to hide the evidence from the men. Susan Glaspell’s use of logos is

Hale and Mrs. Peters find a dead canary and a broken bird cage, it becomes obvious that Mr. Wright was an aggressive and controlling husband. Mrs. Hale states, “No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird- a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too” (1012). The canary represents Minnie Foster. Before she married Mr. Wright, she was a joyful girl who sang in the church choir. After her and Mr. Wright get married, she is forced to stop singing and is stripped of her happiness. The broken cage represents Mr. and Mrs. Wright’s controlling marriage. The bird cage is violently broken to represent how Mrs. Wright violently escaped her marriage. The women’s discoveries cause Mrs. Peters to sympathize with Mrs. Wright. Ultimately, Mrs. Peters decides to stand up for what she believes.

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.

The men were still looking for evidence, but women are replaying the scene of murder in there minds. They conclude that Mrs. Wright was sewing in kitchen, when Mr. Wright came into the kitchen and saw the bird. This explains why Mrs. Wright was sewing nervously. I assumed that Mr. Wright didn’t like birds, because they are very noisy referring to conversation with Mr. Hale about the joining party phone line. Mr. Wright must have seen the birdcage with the bird. He must have broken the birdcage and broke the bird’s neck. This was enough of a motive need for Mrs. Wright to kill her husband. The

One of the women made the comment that Mrs. Wright used to be pretty and happy, when she was Minnie Foster not Minnie Wright. This is just the beginning of realizing that she was just pushed to far into depression and couldn't live up to John Wright's expectations anymore. The Wrights had no children and Mrs. Wright was alone in the house all day long. The women perceive John Wright to be a controlling husband who in fact probably wouldn't have children and this may have upset Mrs. Wright. They eventually find vacant bird cage and ponder upon what happened to the bird, realizing Mrs. Wright was lonely they figured she loved the bird and it kept her company. The women make reference to the fact that Mrs. Wright was kind of like a bird herself, and that she changed so much since she married John Wright. They begin looking for stuff to bring her and they find the bird dead and they realize someone had wrung its neck. This is when they realize Mrs. Wright was in fact pushed to far, John Wright had wrung her bird's neck and in return Minnie Wright wrung his.

Wright's life in their hands to do with what they will.  Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale find the evidence needed to convict Minnie Wright and they suppress it.  They were women who understood the plight of loneliness and the death of a beloved pet.  Mrs. Hale understood that Mr. Wright was a hard man to live with and she knew that he had not only killed Mrs. Wright's bird but he had also killed the real Minnie Foster, the girl she had been.  The men in the story, Sheriff Peters, Mr. Hale, and the young unmarried County Attorney, see only surface things.  They believe that the motive for John's murder lies in the bedroom or in the barn.  The men flounder around ignorantly searching for something they will never find because they can not think as Minnie Wright did.  If the women had told them about the discovery of the dead bird, they would probably laugh and say that the women needed to go back to their quilting and their jellies.  The ragged and uneven sewing that suggests a misplaced state of mind in Minnie Wright would also have been laughed at.  The men wanted to find something concrete that would easily convince an all male jury but they never would.  To men, dead canaries are dead canaries, they would never read into it what Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Peters, and Mrs. Wright did.

consequences. Mrs. Hale's actions are surreptitiously handled and do not cause any damage. Mrs. Hale's scheme is better approached and is smartly executed. She prevents herself and her neighbor from any punishment. As the Sheriff and the County Attorney search for "some definite thing" (Glaspell 1300) or "something to show anger" (Glaspell 1296), Mrs. Hale finds a dead canary. Knowing Mr. Wright is "a hard man" (Glaspell 1298), Mrs. Hale assumes the husband killed the wife's pet. Mrs. Hale notes, "No, Wright wouldn't like the bird-a-thing that sang. She [Mrs. Wright] used to sing." (Glaspell 1299). Mrs. Hale realizes the significance of the dead bird. The dead bird is "something to show anger" (Glaspell 1296). She

When the two women come across the empty, broken bird-cage, they ponder the reason for the broken door and the fate of the canary who occupied it. Later they discover the dead bird wrapped in silk with its neck broken, presumably by the hands of Mr. Wright. The bird symbolizes Minnie Foster, the young choir girl. The dead bird symbolizes Minnie after marriage, when she loses her spirit, and the cage symbolizes her husband who mistreats and isolates her. While describing Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Hale compares her to the bird when she says to Mrs. Peters, " She used to sing real pretty herself”. ( 576) Literary critic Janet Stobbs Wright states," Only as a picture emerges of the way in which Minnie Foster has been changed by her marriage to John Wright, is a process of identification between the two women initiated".

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

Other significant symbols in the story are the bird and the birdcage. Mrs. Hale describes Minnie, before her marriage, as "kind of like a bird herself-real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and fluttery"(glaspell 165). The bird is caged just as Minnie is trapped in the abusive relationship with John. John figuratively strangles the life out of Minnie like he literally strangles the bird. When he kills the bird, he kills the last bit of Minnie and her spirit. Mrs.Hale and Mrs. Peters find Minnie's bird cage in the cupboard, but they don't realize the importance of it until they find the dead bird with its neck twisted to one side. The birdcage symbolizes Minnie's life. The bird and the birdcage is a private symbol which is also representative of the role women are forced into in society, the bird being women and the cage being men. Minnie then strangles the life out of John like he strangled the life out of her bird.

     Next, Mrs. Peters finds a birdcage, and shortly after, Mrs. Hale finds the bird. There are many peculiar things about both of these items. First, the cage has a damaged door, which shows signs of forced entry. Now, Mrs. Wright is said to have loved the bird, and actually was heard to sing to herself more, after she bought the bird. So that leaves only John Wright to be the one who broke the cage. And, after the bird is found, we know why the cage was damaged. The bird, dead in the sewing box, is found strangled to death. Exactly the way that Mr. Wright died in his sleep. This is the single most important piece of evidence, yet both ladies decide to hide it from the detective.

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 women empower themselves through silence, particularly in the kitchen communicating and reflecting upon things around them in the limited space they were given. The men dismiss the kitchen finding nothing that is relevant to the murder case. The men keep crisscrossing through the kitchen, ignoring and not realizing they could find the vital evidence through trivial details. Even though they were having difficulty in finding clues that lead to the murder. While the women were alone looking through Minnie’s kitchen they found the most valuable evidence the “missing piece to men’s puzzle” (Holstein 283). Mrs. Hale found the dead bird strangled in the sewing box telling “Mrs. Peters-look at it! Its neck! Look at its neck!” (782). Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters recognize the bird was strangled brutally “their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension, of horror” (Glaspell 782). Both of them realized the bird was killed the same way as Mr. Wright with the rope around their neck. The strangled bird represents Minnie Foster how her freedom and joy was strangled to death. When the men came in the kitchen, the county attorney noticed the bird cage, wondering if the bird flew away, but Mrs. Hale lied and said “we think the- cat got it” ( Glaspell 782). The county attorney seek only visible evidence for murder he was wasn’t thinking critically what it may mean. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters covered the evidence keeping it between themselves for their own knowledge. They

While searching a cupboard for some sewing supplies to fix a poorly sewn quilt, Mrs. Hale finds a birdcage tucked away inside of it. The birdcage that Mrs. Hale finds is the most symbolic object that reveals the motive for the crime. A birdcage can be symbol of confinement or imprisonment. Mrs. Hale says, “No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird—a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too” (781). Mrs. Hale compares Mrs. Wright to a bird in the sense that birds sing but Mr. Wright does not want her

When Mrs. Hale finds a dead bird in Mrs. Wright's sewing box, she soon recognizes the obvious reason why John Wright was murdered. The audience sees character motivation in Mrs. Wright. Mr. Wright was a man who used silence and coldness to control and mold his wife into someone he thought she ought to be. He killed the singing bird, which was a symbol for Mrs. Wright as Minnie Foster. In an indirect way, he killed her joy of singing, her spirit, keeping her in her own "cage" which she can not escape from. Unless she "got rid of" what (or who) was holding her prisoner.