Susan Glaspell's Trifles

The play Susan Glaspell's Trifles were written in the 1900s. “Susan Keating Glaspell was born in Davenport, Iowa, on July 1, 1876” (Noe 48). “She graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, with a Ph. B. in Philosophy” (Waterman 13). The play Trifles was about the murder of Mr. Wright taken place in their farm house during the winter season. The title of the play was chosen because men only thought of the women as trifles. According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus the word trifles is “something that does not have much value or importance”. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters conceal the evidence that implicate Mrs. Wright in the murder of her husband because they knew how men felt toward women, however Mrs. Wright was a good woman and a hard working farmer’s wife.

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.

Trifles, is a drama that includes the mysterious murder of a local man by the name of John Wright. Glaspell sets the story in a little farmhouse that is in shambles inside. Due to the murder of Mr. Wright the house is now a crime scene. Inside of the house the sheriff and county attorney are investigating, with them they have Mr. Hale, Mrs. Hale, and Mrs. Peters. Mr. Hale is giving the sheriff and county attorney a step by step witness review of the

The play Trifles was written by Susan Glaspell, who is considered to be one of the first feminist writers in American literature. In the story there is an ongoing investigation to find out who killed Mr. Wright and all the evidence is pointing to Mrs. Wright. Two of Mrs. Wright’s neighbors are determined to find out what really happened. Trifles is a suspenseful story that holds many feminist viewpoints that collides with justice for women when it comes to domestic violence.

All the men notice is clutter. The men do not look deeper behind the meanings of this disarray. However, the women do. The women understand that the reason that things such as the towels are not clean is because she more than likely was busy doing her many other chores of the household. They also considered how much trouble Mrs. Wright went to fix the preserves. The women reason that the uncaring concern John had for Minnie and the attention he paid to the house perhaps forced Minnie to resort to killing. Even the County Attorney, Sheriff, and Mr. Hale could not understand all the difficulties women go through. They criticize Mrs. Wright as well as insult all women. Mr. Hale says, "Well, women are used to worrying over trifles." The actions of just these men show how women were taken for granted in this era. Inevitably, the men are unable to prove that Mrs. Wright murdered her husband but are going to convict her anyway. However, the women have solved the case. They come to the conclusion that Mrs. Wright was not treated very well by her husband and was not able to withstand the mistreatment anymore. They could tell the lack of attention he paid to his wife. The men still have a hard time accepting this concept because they do not believe that men treat women badly.

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.

The play Trifles is a world-famous production written by Susan Glaspell in 1916 during the women’s suffrage movement. The women’s suffrage movement was a point in U.S. history when rights for women, like voting and gender equality, were greatly stressed to be enforced. Glaspell’s involvement in the movement did not go unnoticed. Today Glaspell’s plays are famous worldwide for her feministic and socialistic views on legal reform, and involvement in the women’s suffrage movement. However, the play Trifles stands out amongst her others due to it being based on a true murder story she covered as a reporter. The play is about a man named Mr. Wright who is discovered by his neighbor, Mr. Hale, with rope around his neck murdered. Upon discovering Mr. wright, the county attorney and sheriff get involved, along with Mr. Hales wife, Mrs. Hale, and the sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peters. Throughout the investigation at the Wright residence, the women are not asked for help, and are looked down upon by the men. While the men seldom ask the women for their opinion on the murder, the case unfolds right in front of the two wives’ eyes. Like the women in the play, Glaspell was unable to play a significant role in the murder case she was involved in, and her observations over small and minor details she thought may be of importance went unnoticed by the men. Throughout the play, Trifles, Glaspell symbolizes the conflict of men versus women seen during this period through recognition, the

Susan Glaspell shows her readers that women will no longer be in the background. By writing Trifles she gave women an outlook they have never received before. Trifles is a coming up story about women, in other words its about women and their rise to power. Glaspell embodies the women spirit by showing the power, conning, and intectellt of the women in her play.

In 1916, Susan Glaspell wrote a one act play, Trifles based on a murder that she covered in Iowa. Like most of Glaspell’s work it shares the common theme of feminism and female empowerment. Trifles is a play that shows everything Glaspell stood for. The theme of this play is developed through character comparison, historical context, and symbolism. Two of the main characters in Trifles are Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters.

From this small amount of information Glaspell created the play Trifles. The story talks about Mrs. Wright, the farmer’s wife; under suspicion because she claims that she did not realize that her husband had been murdered in the middle of the night while they were in the same bed. Throughout the story we learn more about Mrs. Wright and her possible motives for killing her husband. Before Mrs. Wright’s married life (then Minnie Foster) she was a free spirit and always happy, especially while singing with her local choir group and wearing her beautiful clothes. Once she was married, she slowly started to lose herself, first was her quitting the choir

What is a trifle? A trifle is something that has little to no importance (dictionary.com). For instance, the color of your nails would be considered a trifle. In Trifles by Susan Glaspell, women are criticized and made fun of by men because of the little things they worry about, such as the color of their nails or their hair. This exhibits the gender role difference portrayed during the play’s time period. The central conflict is what the plot is centered around. In Trifles, the central conflict involves the investigation the Mr. Wright’s murder. As the story progresses, we learn that the women’s trifles would’ve helped the men solve the murder, which is ironic. Numerous accounts of symbolism, relating Mrs.Wright to the bird, is also found

“Trifles” is a one act play written by Susan Glaspell in 1916, which was first performed on August 8th by the Provincetown Players in Provincetown, Massachusetts at the Wharf Theater. The author, Susan Glaspell, was born on July 1, 1876 in Davenport, Iowa. Over her lifetime she had become proficient in many different professions: Playwright, Actress, Novelist, and Journalist. For her works, she won an American Pulitzer Prize in 1931. The Provincetown Players was founded by Susan Glaspell and her husband, George Cram Cook. This was the first modern American theater company. Most of her works centered on current issues at the time such at gender roles between males and females. Susan Glaspell was not the typical woman of her time, she decided to go to school and get herself an education and find herself a her own career instead of waiting around for a husband. In 1899, Glaspell graduated from Drake University in Iowa and found herself a job as a journalist for the Des Monies Daily newspaper. The play Trifles was based upon a story that Glaspell reported on when she was a journalist.

Susan Glaspell's Trifles explores the classical male stereotype of women by declaring that women frequently worry about matters of little, or no importance. This stereotype makes the assumption that only males are concerned with important issues, issues that females would never discuss or confront. The characters spend the entirety of the play searching for clues to solve a murder case. Ironically, the female characters, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, uncover crucial evidence and solve the murder case, not the male characters. The men in the play, the Sheriff, County Attorney, and Hale, search the scene of the crime for evidence on their own, and mock the women's discussions. The women's interest in the quilt,

Susan Glaspell’s one-act play “Trifles” was written in 1916. It was written based on real events. When Glaspell was a reporter, she covered a murder case in a small town in Iowa. Later, she wrote this short play which was inspired by her investigation and what she observed. Glaspell used irony, symbolism, and setting in her creation of the authentic American drama, “Trifles”, to express life for women in a male-dominated society in the early nineteen hundreds.

Susan Glaspell's play Trifles explores male-female relationships through the murder investigation of the character of Mr. Wright. It also talks about the stereotypes that women faced. The play takes place in Wright's country farmhouse as the men of the play, the county attorney, the sheriff, and Mr. Hale, search for evidence as to the identity and, most importantly, the motive of the murderer. The attorney, with the intensions of proving that Mrs. Wright choked the husband to death, was interviewing Mr. Hale on what he saw when he came in to the house. The women, on the other hand, were just there to get some clothing for the wife who was in jail for suspected murder of her husband. However, the clues which would lead them to the answer