Susan Glaspell's 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.

The Quilt is another symbol in “Trifles”. The stitching on the quilt represents the emotional state of Minnie. Mrs. Hale points out “all the sewing had been nice and even to a point, then all of

These lines also show a departure from the assumption that women are subservient to their men in that they lie to them. In line 411 one can see more evidence of the almost sisterly bond between women.

In Susan Glaspell's “ A Jury Of Her Peers” Mrs. Wright’s husband is found strangled in their bed and Mrs. Wright is in the living room calm but in the same way concerned, claiming she “sleeps sound” and didn’t wake up or hear anyone in their house that night. Mrs. Hale a lifetime friend of Mrs. Wright compares her to the canary saying “She was like a bird herself. Real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and-fluttery.” Although Mrs. Wright does not initially appear capable of murder, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale concluded Mrs. Wright strangled her husband as evidence by the crazily sewn quilt patch, the unhinged bird cage, and the mutilated 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.

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

As the ladies examine the house, while the men are other places, picking clothes and an apron up for Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Hale gains sympathy for her until finally she starts to take action. When they find the block of quilting that has stitching askew, she starts to fix it, perhaps to cover for Mrs. Wright?s distraught state of mind. While Mrs. Hale is finding sympathy for Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Peters offers a counterpoint that tries to justifies the men?s viewpoints and actions. Her comments to Mrs. Hale?s resentful musings on Mrs. Wright?s unhappy life and on the actions of men in regards to women in general all seem to be rote answers programmed into her by society and a desire not to cause any trouble. This all changes as soon as Mrs. Peters finds the bird.

Another major symbol, which the educated lawmen considered a "trifle", is the quilt which Mrs.Hale and Mrs.Peters stumble across. Minnie had taken the scraps and put them into a nice neat quilt, but one square was haphazardly sewn. This befuddles the women for "It looks like she didn't know

Peters and Mrs. Hale discover Minnie’s dead bird, they realize that her murder of Mr. Wright might have resulted from her angriness of the killing of her bird rather than her being unhappy with her marriage. She did so because she could think of no more better revenge than to take away the most valuable thing away from her husband (his life) just as he snatched away the most valuable thing from her. The realization of this leads to Mrs. Peters' sympathy towards Minnie as she remembers having had similar feelings many years ago when a boy killed her kitten. “When I was a girl – my kitten – there was a boy who took a hatchet, and before my eyes- and before I could get there- If they hadn’t held me back, I would have- hurt him. ”(Glaspell 1343).

Glaspell develops the theme of gender roles by what Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters fret about at the crime scene. For instance, the first concern that Mrs. Peters voices revolves around Mrs. Wright’s fruit preserves and implies that the women are housekeepers. Both the Sheriff and Mr. Hale remark about how the women are “worryin’ about her preserves” and “worrying over trifles” (Glaspell 3). Later, when the men go upstairs to look for evidence, the women decide to bring Mrs. Wright’s apron, fruit, shawl, and quilt for her in prison. To further establish Mrs. Wright as a domesticated housewife, Mrs. Peters suggests that Mrs. Wright wants her apron “to make her feel more natural” (Glaspell 5). Because of what Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters discuss at the crime scene, Glaspell verifies that the women play the role of housekeeper and cook.

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

Therefore, they suppress their wives out of their right to be intellectual because they believe their minds can’t pass beyond the kitchen. This causes the men to ignore the minor aspects the women kept mentioning such as the quilting detail. Mrs. Hale finds an unfinished quilt with “a log cabin pattern” in the kitchen, and she wonders if Mrs. Wright’s “was going to quilt it or just knot it” (Glaspell Page 822). The men poke fun at the women’s concerns over the quilt because they believe these details has nothing to do with the crime. Therefore, they spent most of their time searching for visible criminal signs upstairs and at the farm.

Throughout the play there are three main symbols; the bird, the bird cage and the jar of preserves. The bird symbolized Mrs. Wright and how she loved to sing because the bird was always singing. As the play progresses Mr. Wright grows annoyed with the bird and kills it. The canary’s death represented how Mrs. Wright is dead inside from her neglectful marriage. The bird’s cage symbolized the cage of a marriage Mrs. Wright was in. She felt trapped by her husband’s emotional abuse. When the bird cage broke, it represented the death of Mr. Wright and the freedom that Mrs. Wright felt after breaking free from her long, painful marriage. The last jar of cherry preserves symbolized how Mrs. Wright was still standing. After a failed marriage and losing her bird, which was the one thing she cared most about, Mrs. Wright managed