Susan Glaspell's Trifles

2. The true definition of the word “Trifles” is something of very little value or importance. “Trifles” is a story about a small group of people trying to solve the mystery of why a woman killed her husband. Two women named Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are helping the two men, the sheriff and the county attorney, find Mrs. Wright’s motive to kill her husband. The women begin to find small details that reveal plenty of information that could be useful in the investigation of the murder. These small details that the women find around Mrs. Wright’s home are “Trifles” to the men. As Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale search around the house, Mrs. Peters finds a bird cage in a cupboard. Mrs. Hale finds a dead bird wrapped in a box with its neck broken, and in finding this, they come to the realization that Mrs. Wright killed her husband because he killed her bird. The women know that Mrs. Wright’s husband did not enjoy her singing and he would never allow her to have a bird because it sang too.

The bond between women can be unbreakable. Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” show how two women overlooked can find all the pieces to a missing puzzle but decide on there own justice; silence. If you break down the word trifles it means something of little value. When Hale stated, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell 1040). That was a shot at woman saying they are always worrying over nothing and from that point on it was as if the mindset had changed in both women. By using the gender strategy to analyze how Mrs. Peter’s and Mrs. Hale knowingly covered up a crime because of the bond and sympathy they each felt for Mrs. Wright.

Susan Glaspell’s Trifles is a play about the effect of gender differences on perceptions of duty, law, and justice. The early 1900’s is the setting, arriving at the Wright farmhouse on a crisp, cold morning. Mr. Hale, a neighbor, found John Wright murdered the morning before. Hale has brought his wife, the county attorney, the sheriff and his wife to the home so the men can investigate Wright’s death. With Mrs. Wright as the primary suspect, Henderson, the county attorney, is looking for her motive. While the sheriff and the county attorney are busy looking at the mess left in the kitchen, the women are noticing some of the smaller things, the "trifles" according to Mr. Hale. The men go upstairs, and that is when Mrs. Hale

Mrs.Wright claims she was laying sound asleep, even as her husband lying next to her was being strangled to death by a rope. As you may conclude this story she has made up does not sound plausible due to the evidence against her. Now to find her motive for killing Mr.Wright. There are major clues throughout the text that help to find Mrs.Wright’s motive as evidenced by the mangled bird cage and the slaughtered canary.

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.

Just one person cannot determine the concept of loyalty. Loyalty has many different aspects to different people in different settings. Some people choose loyalty over everything in difficult situations. Depending on the relationship to the person, loyalty could be more important than anything else. Through three different pieces of literature: “The Story of an Hour”, “Everyday Use”, and the play “Tiffles” the reader is able to examine how actions, time, and understanding all make for different acts of loyalty.

The reasons behind Mr. Wright’s demise are obscure, till clues unveil a home environment in which may be considerably enough for such action. The audience is introduced to Mrs. Wright’s situation according to the recollection of her neighboring farmer Lewis Hale, his wife Mrs. Hale, the sheriff and his wife Mrs. Peters as Mrs. Wright has already been taken into custody in suspicion this murder. Mrs. Hale tell the county attorney that the home “never seemed like a cheerful place” as well as telling Mrs. Peters that “he was a hard man”. Implying that this may very well have been a broken home, this followed by another exchange the will point in the speculated domestic abuse. Mrs. Peters discovers a bird-cage that had been placed in a cupboard, only to find Mrs. Wright’s bird to which the cage had belonged.

She also says that Mrs. Wright was a lot like a bird, “…real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and – fluttery (Glaspell 1312).” They then pointed out that the cause of death of the bird was by strangulation and a broken neck, which leads to our next symbolic meaning, Mr. Wright’s

Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, is a murder-mystery that focuses on issues beyond who committed the murder, it addresses the stereotypes and perceptions of men and women in the early twenties. As the plot unravels, it is relatively apparent that Susan Glaspell used symbolism to emphasize the different ways men and women are expected to act and respond to different situations. Such symbols include normal household items such as the telephone, the frozen jars of fruit in the cabinets, and the bird cage. Initially Trifles started off as a regular murder mystery, where John Wright was murdered in his bedroom while he and his wife were asleep.

The play, Trifles, written by Susan Gladwell, is based upon the 1900 murder of John Hossack, which she reported on during her time as a journalist. This play details the investigation into the murder of her husband, John Wright, in his sleep, with the primary suspect being his wife, Minnie Wright. This play takes place at the Wright’s home while Minnie Wright is locked up in jail. At the house, the detectives are trying to find the motive for the murder, which the county attorney, Mr. Henderson, states that it’s something that they needed to determine, but is also the only thing that is unclear in this case. During this investigation, the gender dynamics are brought out through the dead canary because it brings to light the idea of patriarchy

The title of the play Trifles is used as a symbol to describe the way that women are viewed in the eyes of men. At the time of the play, males viewed women as trifles. Trifles are described as items that are of little importance or significance (Wakefield). The title could also be used as a symbol to signify the importance of the so-called “trifles” that the women were studying during the murder investigation. It is quite ironic because the common items observed my the women were thought to be useless to the men, while after combining further information about the murder investigation, these items would have been key to solving the case. Although they help Mrs. Wright by hiding any items that could have

The play Trifles was written based on a murder trial Mrs. Glaspell covered in Iowa as a reporter. According to Iowacoldcase.org, she covered the trial of a woman who killed her husband in the middle of the night and claimed her innocence. The woman was found guilty by an all-male jury, but later released after serving less than one year. In the play

The play, “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell was first performed on August 8th, 1916 and is based on the accounts of a murder trial on which she attended as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News (Gainor 38). The story of the play is based on a woman named Margaret Hosack from Iowa, who was on trial for killing her husband due to his abusive behavior towards her. In order to understand the play, it is important to understand the author’s background, as it relates to the main themes of the play: gender dominance, confinement and loneliness. Susan Glaspell, from Davenport, Iowa is only the second woman to win a Pulitzer Prize and much of her writing is strongly feminist, dealing with society’s view of women and male dominance.

The play Trifles takes place in a rural area and centers around a woman, Mrs. Wright, who has been accused of killing her husband by strangling him. The act starts off in Mr. and Mrs. Wright’s home on a cold, winter morning the day after Mr. Wright’s body was discovered by the neighbor; the county attorney, the sheriff and his wife and the neighboring farmer and his wife are all inside the

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.