Susan Glaspell 's ' Trifles ' Essay

Trifles was written in the early 1900's by Susan Glaspell. This occurred far before the women's movement. Women were generally looked upon as possessions to their husbands. Their children, all wages, and belongings were property of their husbands. In Glaspell's story it is easily depicted as to what role the men and women portrayed in society at this time.

However, Susan Glaspell uses the kitchen in the plot as another theatrical metaphor for a domain of gender identification because it is a women’s domestic territory where women’s life is revealed through common kitchen items. Throughout the play, we can distinguish the roles given to women in that era. In this era, women’s roles were generally reproductive, so they have been relegated to the home with less interaction with the outside world. Because kitchens have often served as work spaces, women have found a sense of empowerment through domestic tasks such as cooking, food knowledge, and efficiency of the kitchen. These conditions reveal the state of mind of women in the play. Minnie Wright’s “gloomy kitchen” (Glaspell 443) is “left without having been put in order—unwashed pans under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the breadbox, a dish towel on the table—other signs of incompleted work” (Glaspell 443). She lost her motivation to do housework chores, which represents that her mind is battered and leads to Mr. Wright’s murder—he has distorted her life.

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.

There are many literary elements that contribute and help to further explain the theme of Susan Glaspell’s one-act play, “Trifles”. The theme of isolation in “Trifles” can be backed up by multiple dramatic literary elements that are very evident in the story. Characters can help support the theme in many ways by difference in gender, how isolation affects the theme, and how they work together. Another literary element that is crucial to the theme of isolation is the setting of a lonely farm house back in the woods unseen by the public from the road. Lastly, the literary element of conflict relates to the theme of isolation in the many ways that conflict brings out isolation between the characters in the play. The theme of isolation in “Trifles”

Susan Glaspell’s one-act play, Trifles, weaves a tale of an intriguing murder investigation to determine who did it. Mrs. Wright is suspected of strangling her husband to death. During the investigation the sheriff and squad of detectives are clueless and unable to find any evidence or motive to directly tie Mrs. Wright to the murder. They are baffled as to how he was strangled by a rope while they were supposedly asleep side by side. Glaspell artfully explores gender differences between men and women and the roles they each fulfill in society by focusing on their physicality, their methods of communication and vital to the plot of the play, their powers of observation. In simple terms, the play suggests that men tend to be assertive,

Marriage a sacred bond uniting two people who are so deeply in love that they can't live without one another, for even a second. Many couples in this situation take these marriage vows to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. Those vows remain cherished throughout the years of marriage. Partner’s share intimate details and form a strong trustworthy bond with one another. Often couples settle into a routine, move out of the city and have children. Occasionally over time that love will fade; couples change and lose interest in one another and begin to look for a way out of marriage. In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles, there is evidence to

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 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.

The gender differences in the play are obvious and important to the story. The men in this play exhibit some traditional stereotypes of men during the time period, such that they were aggressive and self-centered. The women seem to be more cautious, intuitive and sensitive. These traits allow the women to come a lot closer to figuring out the murder than the men do. At one point in the play the women find a quilt that Mrs. Wright had been working on. Mrs. Hale asks Mrs. Peters, “I wonder if she was goin’ to quilt it or just knot it?” (658). Just then the sheriff comes down the stairs and once again ridicules the women for worrying about such little things. “They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it!” (658), he exclaims. This is actually an important piece of evidence in the story, as the ladies find out later. They realize that she was extremely nervous about something while she was sewing, because she usually sews “so nice and even” (658), but the piece she had been working on was “all over the place” (658).

The single act play “Trifles” is loosely based on the murder of a farmer in the state of Iowa in the early nineteenth century, which Glaspell reported on while working as a journalist. The farmer’s wife was accused of the murder, and was initially convicted, but later acquitted. Literary analysts note that Glaspell “approached the case like a detective” (Bryan and Wolf). More than a decade after that incident, when she was a career writer, analysts describe, “in a span of ten days, Glaspell composed a one-act play” being inspired from that real life murder event (Bryan and Wolf). In “Trifles,” while the county attorney and sheriff, along with Mr. Hale are investigating the murder of Mr. Wright, the female companions Mrs. Hale and Mrs.

Women, at the time the play was written, were generally thought of as submissive to men, as well as less intelligent. Glaspell intricately, and subtly writes these female characters in as the exact opposite of that stereotype. Although in the very beginning of the play, the women are shown as timid, and subordinate to the men, as they put together the clues of the murder of Mr. Wright, their innate intelligence emerges. “Mrs. Peters: … Why, here’s a birdcage… Did she have a bird, Mrs. Hale? Mrs. Hale: … There was a man around last year selling canaries cheap, but I don’t know as she took one; maybe she did. She used to sing real pretty herself.” (Glaspell 1159). Within a few minutes, the women discover more evidence than the men did throughout their entire investigation. After discovering the corpse of a dead canary, it’s neck snapped by the hands of the abusive Mr. Wright, the women conclude that Mrs. Wright snapped the neck of her husband as a quasi-poetic justice. When the men return from their investigation, the women become empowered by relating to the motives behind Mrs. Wrights actions, “(Their [Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters] eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension, of horror. Steps are heard outside, Mrs. Hale slips the box [containing the canary] under quilt pieces and sinks into her chair).” (Glaspell 1161). Despite the men’s harsh words, and belittling attitude toward the women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters remain strong and resilient. Compared to the men,

Society has put abnormal standards between women and men. Our gender equality has been an issue throughout history and legislative rights. In the short play “Trifles” by author Susan Glaspell, shows the feminist content and the failures of marriages. Mr. and Mrs. Wright had been married for a long time. They don’t have a family and live in a place that’s very solitary aside from any other houses. An investigation occurred to find the strange death of Mr. Wright and to discovered evidence if Mrs. Wright killed him.

“Trifles” a play by Susan Glaspell, emphasizes the thought that women were kept in their homes and their contributions to the home and family went unappreciated and unnoticed. The play gives readers a view of how women were view and treated during the 1900’s. As a female analyzing the play, Mrs. Wright’s motive for killing Mr. Wright was quite clear. Susan Glaspell gives her readers a feminist approach, to demonstrate how Mrs. Wright’s murdering of her husband is justified.

Susan Glaspell’s most memorable one-act play, Trifles (1916) was based on murder trial case that happened in the 1900’s. Glaspell worked as a reporter, where she appointed a report of a murder case. It was about a farmer, John Hossack who was killed while he was asleep in bed one night. His wife claimed that she was asleep next to him when the attack occurred. No one believed in her statement, she was arrested and was charged on first degree murder.

A trifle is something that has little value or importance, and there are many seeming "trifles" in Susan Glaspell's one-act play "Trifles." The irony is that these "trifles" carry more weight and significance than first seems to be the case. Just as Glaspell's play ultimately reveals a sympathetic nature in Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, the evidence that the men investigators fail to observe, because they are blind to the things that have importance to a woman, reveals the identity of the murderer and are, therefore, not really "trifles," after all. Thus, the title of the play has a double-meaning: it refers, satirically, to the way "trifling" way some men perceive women, and it also acts as an ironic gesture to the fact that women are not as "trifling" as these men make them out to be. This paper will analyze setting, characters, plot, stage directions, symbolism, themes and genre to show how Glaspell's "Trifles" is an ironic indictment not of a murderess but rather of the men who push women to such acts.