Just one person cannot determine the concept of loyalty. Loyalty has many different aspects to different people in different settings. Some people choose loyalty over everything in difficult situations. Depending on the relationship to the person, loyalty could be more important than anything else. Through three different pieces of literature: “The Story of an Hour”, “Everyday Use”, and the play “Tiffles” the reader is able to examine how actions, time, and understanding all make for different acts of loyalty. While reading “Everyday Use”, Walker mentions Mama dreaming of Dee thanking her. It would be easy to assume Mama favored Dee in the first few paragraphs. Dee speaks of things she would like to have or inherit. She asks Mama for some quilts that Mama and Big Dee had handmade. According to Sam Whitsitt, “The quilt is a trope whose analogue provides the stitch that untropes the trope” (445). Mama remembers offering them to Dee years ago, but Dee refused to take them. “Then she told me …show more content…
“Trifles” is a play where a woman is suspect to her husband’s murder. During the play, two detectives and their wives visit John Wright’s home. The two wives “pick up on the circumstantial and physical ‘trifles’ – a stray stitch, a burst jar – that their clueless and indifferent husbands overlook entirely (Hilton 148). The wives put together what really happened. One of the wives, Mrs. Hale says, “Here, this is the one she was working on, and look at the sewing!” (Glaspell 1611). The wives figured it out and even felt sorry for Mrs. Wright. When their husbands asked if they had found anything both wives denied what they knew. The women’s pity for Mrs. Wright kept them loyal to her. This concept of loyalty comes from understanding someone’s situation. The women felt bad for Mrs. Wright and what she had been through. They decided that what she had done was fair. The wives then decided to be loyal to Mrs. Wright and not testify against
Dee pulls out two quilts and this is what the mother has to say about them:
Wright’s defense, the men all head upstairs to go over the crime scene to search for clues. The women; Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters knew they were in the center of all the clues. “Women are used to worrying over trifles” Mr. Hale said, and because of that, the women uncovered all the clues that would lead to motive and the men would remain clueless. As for the messy kitchen that the attorney did notice but just chalked up to Mrs. Wright not being a good house wife, the ladies noticed that she was in fact in the middle of cleaning up. That half the table was wiped clean and the other half left as if she were interrupted. They also noticed that the towel that the attorney thought to be just thrown across the room was in fact covering a loaf of fresh bread that was to later be put in the bread box. They also knew that the dirty towel roller was probably that dirty from the man they sent to start the fire in the stove that morning so that the house would be warm by the time they arrived. The ladies were to gather some things to take to Mrs. Wright to the jail. They found her sewing basket under the corner table and were admiring the bright pieces and the log cabin pattern. They wondered if she was going to quilt it or knott it. The men thought this was funny and made fun of them. Unbeknownst to them that the ladies had just found what could be the evidence of Mrs. Wrights’ frame of mind. The ladies noticed that most of the
She is protective, and loving to Maggie. Mama realizes that Dee who is lighter skinned, and with other physical attributes admired by others will fare better in life, although she acknowledges some of Dee's flaws to herself. She also recognizes that Dee is better able to care for herself.
In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles, written in 1916, two female characters are left in the kitchen of a house where a murder has been committed, while the menfolk search around for clues. The men largely ignore the women and are mocking of them and their petty concerns on the occasions that they do speak to them. While the men are about looking for the “cold hard facts” of the murder, the women are in the kitchen bothering with “trifles” that display all of the details about the wife’s life and, most probably, her motivation for the murder. In this play, Susan Glaspell has written male characters that clearly display the “Ethics of Justice”, a sort of right is right and wrong is wrong view; while the women clearly embody the “Ethics of Care”, a view that takes relationships and feelings into account when judging the morality of actions.
Just as the argument over the quilts shows Dee as intrinsically immature, it directly points out that the mother and Dee have, in fact, great value within them. Dee’s mother, for instance, is at first silent to Dee’s demands to have the butter churn and wooden benches. When Dee takes the quilts, previously promised to Maggie, the mother then becomes defensive. The mother questions Dee’s intended use of the quilts in an effort to deter Dee from her insistence of owning
Now all of a sudden she has Black Muslim family and wants to impress them so she returns to grab things that are part of her family’s heritage. That are only interested in what they stand for and not for whom they stand for. Then as soon as she pays a visit to her home, she picks up and walks out again. It is obvious, to her heritage is for show not for living. The situational irony is present as well. Selfish Dee expects to be able to just walk into Mama’s house and take what she wants. Instead, Mama finally realizes that Maggie deserves the quilts because she understands her heritage. Mama actually understands what Dee is becoming and decides to give the quilts to Maggie.
This upsets the Narrator, Mama, she makes reference to Maggie being able to put them to everyday use, and she can always quilt more; while Dee adamantly protests. Mama makes a move to recover the quilts and Dee pulls them away and Mama thinks to herself “They already belonged to her” (Walker 456). In Mama’s perspective, the point of the quilts was the tradition of quilting, not the quilts themselves. She views Dee as someone to wants to act out the movements of appreciation of their culture, instead of passing it on. In the act of retrieving the quilts from Dee’s grip, and returning them to Maggie, Mama reveals herself as an unknowing, round character that can re-act differently than what is expected of her. Mama stands up for the true traditions in the face of her daughter, although her daughter believes herself to be the all knowing one.
Mama decided to keep her word and give the quilts to Maggie because she understood what these quilts meant, “ You will not understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!” The representation of the quilts is the symbol of the family and Dee couldn’t understand it, even with her education. Mama had more life experience and understanding of her culture then Dee would ever learn in a
In Trifles, the differences in evidence that the men and woman notice, led men to failure in the investigation of Mr. Wright’s death, because men and women shared different perspectives in the same setting. Hence, even though all the items in the home of the Wright family, held significance and meaning to the death of Mr. Wright, the male characters dismissed these elements as they were more interested in forensic evidence. Whereas the women, on the contrary, caught on to these clues and recognized the relevance, as it revealed the bleakness of Mrs. Wright’s life. The quilt, kitchen and canary/cage are just a few of the many symbols in the play that the men treated as mere trifles which the women weighed important.
Mama shows favoritism towards Maggie because of her disability. Maggie’s disability allows Mama to become closer with Maggie instead of Dee. Dee wanted to be sent off to school to get away from the rural and deficiency lifestyle. Mama and Maggie gain a close bond while Dee is away. Maggie appreciated their heritage and did not mind staying with Mama and doing household work. Mama’s viewpoint on Maggie is more appreciative than her views on Dee.
Dee continues to insult her family. She also wants to take the top of the butter churner to decorate with. Dee believes that everything she says is right so she talks about how she is fit to receive the quilts. Dee says that Maggie will use them instead of hanging them up as art to admire them (2441).
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.
The bond between women can be unbreakable. Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” show how two women overlooked can find all the pieces to a missing puzzle but decide on there own justice; silence. If you break down the word trifles it means something of little value. When Hale stated, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell 1040). That was a shot at woman saying they are always worrying over nothing and from that point on it was as if the mindset had changed in both women. By using the gender strategy to analyze how Mrs. Peter’s and Mrs. Hale knowingly covered up a crime because of the bond and sympathy they each felt for Mrs. Wright.
Here the tone shifted from prideful to authoritative. Dee demanded to own the two quilts. Mama said the quilts had been made by her ancestors and she “hung up on them on the quilt frames on the front porch and made them (762).” The quilt frames symbolize the object which helps organize and keep the family's generations alive, and the front porch symbolizes the connection of the family with the world. Mama knew the quilts were what kept the generations together, regardless of what the people around thought or did.The quilts needed to be used in order to keep the family traditions alive. Soon after, the protagonist came up with an excuse and said the “lavender [pieces], [came] from old clothes” which had been “handed down (762).” The lavender symbolizes love and devotion. The old clothes symbolize the legacy of the family's heritage. Although Dee only wanted to the quilts, Mama felt her past family's love and devotion through the quilts. Dee wanted the quilts because to preserve them, not because of an emotional connection to them. In addition, the young woman continued to offend her mother to the point where Mama told her the quilts were for Maggie, the youngest sister, and Dee exclaimed how her sister could never “appreciate the quilts.” She continued and said “She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use (762).” Everyday use represents the “everyday use” of customs and true purpose of the quilts. Although Dee thinks her sister will destroy the blankets through sex and daily use, Mama wanted her to understand how everything she wanted had a special purpose in their
The behavior of overlooking her sister's, Maggie, and Mama's feelings since her childhood to the present indicates Dee's character as a person who disregards others. Mama ponders that while the house where they used to live burned to the ground; Maggie was burning, her "hair smoking and dress falling off her in little black papery flakes." Although she saw that Maggie needed her sister's aid, Dee stood "off under the sweet gum tree" at a distance (87). Walker reveals that Mama still finds Dee carrying her self-centeredness when she excludes herself from the pictures and "never [took] a shot without making sure the house is included" (89). Dee wants to capture the signs of poverty from her past so that she can show how much success she has gained in spite of being poor to her friends. Dee is so egotistical that she declares her sister is "backward enough to put [the quilts] to everyday use" (91) whereas she considers herself smart and would appreciate the quilts by hanging them. Her coldness and lack of concern make