Main Symbols In Trifles

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.

Since the beginning of time, men had always been on the top while degrading the women and telling them they only serve as maids in the house. In the case of the Wrights, the author makes the reader wonder what it would have been like to live with Mr. Wright and how Mrs. Wright felt about living in poor conditions because both of them do not appear in the story. It is through Mrs. Hale that the reader gets a sense of before and after life of Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Hale used to be friends with Minnie Foster, who was always cheering and happy around people. She explained that after the marriage, she never went to visit because she hated the house and the owner, blaming him for not giving Minnie the respect she deserved. The three men that were inspecting the house for clues to incriminate Minnie Foster were blinded by ridiculing the ‘womanly’ things that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters were talking and doing while waiting. Because of this, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters quickly uncover the truth by telling each other their backstories. Mrs. Peters also mentions that a person gets discourage and loses heart. The men misunderstood the act as some kind of ‘mental’ issue or problem but in truth, Minnie Foster did such horrendous act as killing her husband is somehow justified by the author. Minnie Foster managed to put up with John Wright’s harsh treatment and poor conditions that she had to live in.

Trifles, Susan Glaspell’s play written in 1916, reveal concerns of women living in a male dominated society. Glaspell communicates the role that women were expected to play in late 19th century society and the harm that can come of it to women, as well as men. The feminist agenda of Trifles was made obvious, in order to portray the lives of all women who live oppressed under male domination. John and Minnie Wright are two main characters who are never seen; however provide the incident for the play. In this play women are against men, Minnie against her husband, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters against their husband’s, as well as men in general.

In the early 1900´s women did not have the same rights as men and are not respected as much as men either. Women did not get their voting rights till 1920, four years after the play Trifles by Susan Glaspell. In the play women are suppressed by men and society, Mrs.Hale and Mrs.Peters prove that women are not constrained by society's rules and are in fact, the most astute characters in *Susan Glaspell’s play “Trifles”*.

The title of the play “Trifles” is a major symbol of how men viewed women in the early nineteen hundreds, something small, and of little value or importance. One of the examples of trifles within the play is the bird in the cage which symbolized Mrs. Wright and the life not only she had to live, but other women faced during this time as well. Women, as well as Mrs. Wright, felt caged in her own homes, and some were not able to associate with their friends. Women had no right to vote, or have a say so as to anything except what went on inside the home as far as cleaning, cooking, sewing, and tending to their children.

In today's society, we generally view upon everyone as equal beings who deserve equal rights. At the turn of the 20th century, this particular view didn?t exist. Men clearly dominated almost every aspect of life and women were often left with little importance. The Wright?s embody this view of roles in Susan Glaspell?s play Trifles. Mrs. Wright was a typical woman who suffered the mental abuse from her husband and was caged from life. In Trifles, a mixture of symbolism of oppression illustrates Mrs. Minnie Wright?s motives to kill her husband and to escape from imprisonment.

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.

John Steinbeck wrote “The Chrysanthemums” where the protagonist, Elisa maintains her flower garden with a flower called Chrysanthemums. In a daily routine, Elisa’s husband Henry is a typical farmer who was busy with his orchard and steers, while Elisa, a housewife tends to her garden as the chrysanthemums were shown as Elisa’s children. Written by Susan Glaspell, “Trifle” was a play about Mrs. Wright who was put through an investigation where she was the main suspect in the case of her husband‘s death. In the play “Trifles”, the canary symbolizes a child for Mrs. Wright who’s also a house wife and she took care of that bird like it was her child. The bird (canary) in “Trifles” is symbolically similar to the flowers in the Steinbeck story

The play ?Trifles?, by Susan Glaspell , is an examination of the different levels of early 1900?s mid-western farming society?s attitudes towards women and equality. The obvious theme in this story is men discounting women?s intelligence and their ability to play a man?s role, as detectives, in the story. A less apparent theme is the empathy the women in the plot find for each other. Looking at the play from this perspective we see a distinct set of characters, a plot, and a final act of sacrifice.

Wright life of isolation and abuse is a factor that makes Mrs. Peters shift her judgment from supporting the course of law that would stipulate the conviction of the suspect Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Hale who is with Mrs. Peters speaks on how her neighbor Mrs. Wright was living every day sad and isolated by saying “Not having children makes less work—but it makes a quiet house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come in” (1079). In fact, Mrs. Hale later express her guilt for not visiting the isolated Mrs. Wright “I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here “ (1079). Mrs. Peter is so moved by the stories that Mrs. Hale tells about Minnie Foster before she married, we also see in Russell Glaspell’s “Trifles” “Mrs. Hale subtly suggests that Mrs. Wright is not the sole agent in the death of Mr. Wright “ (1) that she decides to talk closer and in hushed voices to Mrs. Hale so as to protect Minnie Wright from any chauvinistic attitudes that may justify revenge as the reason for murder. This is also stated in Russell Glaspell’s “Trifles” “foreshadows the conspiracy of the three women and their efforts to control the outcome or the fate of all characters”

Trifles is a hundred-year-old short one-act play written by Susan Glaspell in the year 1916. The story stays in one room, the kitchen, and follows a couple of women and men. The women who are picking up the belongings of Mrs. Wright, at her home, as she is currently in jail while a few men investigate the crime scene as the night before Mr. Wright had been strangled. The men struggle to either find a motive for Mrs. Wright to be the murderer or evidence of a break into the house to investigate other possible suspects, ultimately never finding evidence for anything strange happening in the house. The women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, come across a bird cage with a pulled hinge only to eventually come across a dead canary, which they assume was

The first object that Glaspell uses in the setting to add symbolic meaning is the dead canary in the cage. Gaspell uses the dead bird to symbolize how Mrs. Wrights old life as Minne Foster is dead and gone, and can never be brought back.

Mrs. Wright is referred to when Mrs. Hale speaks of her by using her maiden name, when saying ?I wish you?d seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang.? The old rocking chair symbolizes Mrs. Wright as she has allowed herself to depreciate, just as the rocking chair has depreciated. ?The chair sagged to one side,? Mrs. Hale stated that the chair was not anything like she remembered, referring to the fact that Mrs. Wright has also changed since she

Trifles: Symbolism The bird, caged most of its life and never learned how to fly. A mess in the kitchen of the shattered cherry preserves showing the worry of those now wasteful, countless hours of labor done in the flaming heat of summer. The beauty of a bird that now turns out dead. The author’s symbolic use of the bird, cage and broken preservatives helps to convey the deeper meaning of Mrs. Wright’s life and the overall context of the world at that time through the plot of the play.

Confinement is the sense of being trapped or having no way to escape. It leads to making decisions that could cause regret or living a life filled with no happiness. In the play, Trifles written by Susan Glaspell, it is a prime example of how an unhappy life caused a woman to make a decision that ended her husband’s life. Through this play, the author displayed many important symbols to represent characters and emotions. The most revealing symbols in this play were the bird, the cage, and the quilt. These symbolic objects represented an important aspect in the protagonist’s life.