Script Analysis of "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell

The bond between the women is like a knot just like the knot tied around Mr. Wrights neck when he was strangled and also how the women will 'knot' tell even through they solved the murder. This theme of the knot is crucial to the plot of the play. The other helpful explaination was of the preservative jars. I thought of the obvious symbolism behind it but Smith discusses how there is one jar left like the remaining secret of the motive. The specific pages I listed for this work were definitely the most helpful.

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.

A mangled canary wrapped in silk and a broken bird cage door are significant clues that partially reveal Mrs. Wright’s motive. A person must have broken the door, as there were no cats or larger animals in the house according to Mrs. Peters, who know Mrs. Wright was afraid of cats. Mrs. Peters comments the bird cage “looks as if someone had been—rough with it,” so whoever broke in to the cage broke the hinge out of rage. The two women also find a lifeless canary wrapped in a piece of silk. It’s neck was snapped, and looked as if it was strangled. Readers can infer Mrs. Wright loved the canary because she wrapped it in silk. The couple was not wealthy, shown by the cheap kitchen stove with a broken liner. They could not afford new luxuries, so Mrs. Wright wrapping the bird in silk is significant

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.

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.

While the men were looking to find evidence, the rising action continues when the women find series of small discoveries. For example they see the sewing pattern that she stitched, they conclude that while sewing Mrs. Wright was nervous. Another discovery they make is broken door on the birdcage, they had no idea that they found key part of plot. Later on they find a dead bird in the sewing basket, which had its neck broken. Finding the dead bird had answer they’re previous question. Seconds after finding the dead bird they had completely understanding of what had happened and all the questions they asked earlier were now answered. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters were terrified and were in state of shock about the truth they had discovered.

Throughout the drama, Mrs. Wright and the canary share many similarities. For example, Mrs. Hale, the wife of Mr. Hale, describes that Mrs. Wright “was kind of like a bird herself—sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery” (185). Overall, the quotation describes Mrs. Wright as a gentle and submissive woman, the type of woman society expected her to be. In addition, although Mrs. Hale compares her to a bird in a favorable manner, she also defines Mrs. Wright as a woman that is fragile and uncappable of providing for herself, another social stereotype that women were subject to. Ultimately, however, the rigid social expectations for women served to reiterate their role in the home and to further confine them to the homestead itself, especially as society typically objectified and trivialized women, celebrating the conforming wife while condemning women to have their wings clipped by society’s standards. In this way, beyond her personality, Mrs. Wright becomes even more synonymous with the canary, an estranged creature confined behind bars as an aesthetic spectacle that is unable to sing an independent song.

Murder, torture, and mayhem are merely three of the unique problems that can be found throughout the one act play Trifles by Susan Glaspell. The writer opens up the story by explaining the situation of Mrs. Wright, a middle aged woman who is being accused of murdering her husband. The crime scene is a mess. A sheriff, the prosecuting attorney and their wives are looking in to the gruesome death that occurred upstairs in the Wright household. It is immediately found that the men focus their attention to the area around the body of Mr. Wright in search of evidence. However, it is the women begin to stumble across the clues that may lead to Mrs. Wright’s persecution. As more evidence is found we are lead to believe that Mrs. Wright did, in fact, kill her husband. By the end of the play the reader is still left wondering, why? Was it a case of self-defense, or is there something much deeper going on? Once a full understanding is reached, it becomes apparent that the only basis that should be used for dropping the charges of this case should be built on the notion of mental insanity. Mrs. Wright clearly demonstrates psychological tendencies that are symptomatic of Dissociative Disorders (Ben-Zvi, 145). With an evaluation of her past life, her behavior immediately after killing her husband, and evidence that is later found by the women, it becomes clear that Mrs. Wright was stricken with a Dissociative Disorder.

The men, though, laugh at the women's wonderings about the quilt. To them it is of little importance. Likewise, the bird and its cage are easily dismissed. In fact, the men just as easily believe a lie about this bird and cage. When the cage is noticed, its broken door overlooked, the county attorney asks, "Has the bird flown?'" Mrs. Peters replies that the "'cat got it'" (360). There is actually no such cat, but the men do not know that and never question the existence of it. The bird, however, is vital to the case. Mr. Wright killed the bird, Minnie's bird, which may have provoked her to then kill him. In addition, the strangling of Mr. Wright, a form of murder which perplexes all when a gun was handy, is reminiscent of the strangling of that bird. It is another answer to the men's questions, but an answer they never find. The women, on the other hand, take note of all they see. They notice not only the bird, the cage, and the quilt but other things that the men call "trifles," like Minnie's frozen preserves and her request for her apron and shawl. These women are united; it seems, not only as country wives or as neighbors but on the basic level of womanhood. This is apparent from the start of the play. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters "stand close together near the door," emotionally bonded throughout the play and, here, physically, in a way, too. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters also have a kinship to Minnie, just as to each other. They respect her work as a homemaker. Mrs.

In the society of the 1920s when the play was written, the confinement of women was at an all-time high, however the breakout of women’s rights was just starting. The tone of this play helps show just this view, by promoting a character such as Mrs. Peters, who is stuck on whose side be on in the mystery of the murder. As they uncover the motive of Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Peters character begins to understand her, although the deceased husband was murdered in such a gruesome way, and know there should be a punishment for the crime for the crime because of her background with her husband as sheriff, who said she is “married to the law”, she comprehends the “stillness” that Mrs. Wright must have felt, with the house being as gloomy as it was on a bright character such as she before she was married. Such as

Wright explains that someone must have come in, in the middle of the and slipped a rope around her husband’s neck while she was asleep next to him, she states, “I sleep sound.” Mrs. Wright didn’t seem concerned never moving from her rocker, she kept rocking and pleating the apron. The men searched the kitchen which appeared unkept and found only kitchen items, nothing out of the ordinary. Her neighbor Mrs. Hale came in and said that she hadn’t been in the house in years, she states “It hasn’t been a cheerful place” (561). Mrs. Wright is now being accused of murdering her husband and her only concern was her preserves, the county attorney sates, “Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves” (561). The ladies that was in the Wright house was discussing how Mrs. Wright used to be, dressed up in pretty clothes, was lively and confident, she lost that over the years and now “She didn’t even belong to the Ladies Aid” (562). They guessed she couldn’t do her part and felt shabby, so she kept to herself. The ladies thought she killed her husband and practically convicted her right there in her kitchen. The women are constantly worrying over Trifles, or something that is totally unimportant. After Mrs. Wright is arrested for the murder of her husband the two ladies take Mrs. Wright quilt to the jail to keep her

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.

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.

The setting of the play which takes place in the early twentieth century has established the theme that women have been looking down by men. ‘Trifles’ that is used as the title of the play has further foreshadowed the theme of the play in which discrimination of women will happen in the play. During the investigation of Mr Wright’s death, the men that involved in finding out the murderer have despised