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.

Trifles, Susan Glaspell’s play written in 1916, reveal concerns of women living in a male dominated society. Glaspell communicates the role that women were expected to play in late 19th century society and the harm that can come of it to women, as well as men. The feminist agenda of Trifles was made obvious, in order to portray the lives of all women who live oppressed under male domination. John and Minnie Wright are two main characters who are never seen; however provide the incident for the play. In this play women are against men, Minnie against her husband, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters against their husband’s, as well as men in general.

“Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is situated in 1916 and is a one act play which incorporates essential components of what the women’s rights movement was about. After moving on from Iowa’s Drake University in 1899, Glaspell commenced her writing vocation of composing short stories and books. The play from Glaspell recounts the story of a homicide mystery involving the married couple of Mrs. Wright (Minnie) and her spouse, the murder victim, John Wright; this story also incorporates the outlook of society towards women being viewed as beneath men. “Trifles” demonstrates the unfair mentality regularly acknowledged among men towards women in 1916. In addition, it showcases the big role comradery plays for women in becoming equal represented

As the readers understand that the women then find the proof (being the canary and the birdcage) in the kitchen. In this manner, the point in time of the setting sets up all the activity for the upcoming characters in the play. Overall, the author discusses the activities within the play adversely with the gender- specific beliefs along with the mood/perspective. Alongside the time of the play, another component of the play is the season. Trifles takes place in the cold weathers of winter. In the play the sheriff says, “SITE”. Also mentioned, “SITE”. Glaspell cautiously expressed the setting to help distinguish the emotions of the characters in the play. It’s stated that, “SITE”. The destroyed containers/ bottles is in comparison with Mrs. Wrights mindset. The mentioning of “cold” suggests that Mr. Wrights attendance creeped in the house. The isolation that was brought about generated absolute burdens on Mrs. Wright. As mentioned in the play, Mrs. Wright, “SITE”. Which is represented by the damaged containers. All of which sums up the emotional place that Mrs. Wright is

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.

In “Trifles”, a division between the two sexes is quickly established as the men enter the house and huddle by the stove while the women remain still by the door. As the men start their detective work the women wander around the house to gather some of Mrs. Wright’s belongings. While searching for her belongings, the women discover an empty birdcage and find a dead bird in a “pretty box” (Glaspell, 956) inside of Mrs. Wright's sewing basket. Mrs. Hale jumps at the sight of the bird’s neck and Mrs. Peters points out how “somebody-wrung-its-neck” (Glaspell, 957) similar to the way Mr. Wright was found earlier. Mrs. Wright's murder of her husband can be seen as an act of feminine revolt against the male-dominated society. Another example of women defying against patriarchy is of Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters hiding the evidence that can prove Mrs. Wright to be guilty of her husband’s murder. Before their departure from the Wright’s house, as the men are returning, the sheriff suggests that the county attorney take a look through the items Mrs. Peters had collected for Mrs. Wright. However, he decides that anything collected by the women cannot have much significance and overlooks it. His assumption that the women would have came forward if they saw any possible evidence costs him. The sheriff’s belief is that women derive their identity solely from their relationships with men; the dominant gender.

The reactions in Trifles reveal to the reader how heavily defined gender roles were in the early twentieth century. The two genders quickly form separate bonds with one another in this play. The men of this time dominate every aspect of this story. They make sarcastic jokes at the women when they start to show concern about things that appeared out of the norm in Mrs. Wright’s house. The first thing they noticed is the broken can goods when the Sheriff says, “Well, you can beat the women! Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves” (Glaspell 1245). This tone of voice reveals how the men did not take the women seriously. They laugh at the women’s idea of trifles but as Phyllis writes, it is “their attentiveness to the "trifles" in her life, the kitchen things considered insignificant by the men, the two women piece together, like patches in a quilt, the

In “A Jury of Her Peers,” Susan Glaspell uses the men’s belittlement and the women’s responses to show their differences. For example, when the men laugh about the women’s question of the quilt, Mrs. Hale responds with “our taking up our time with little things while we’re waiting for them to get the evidence. I don’t see as it’s anything to laugh about” (Glaspell 8). Seeing these differences bring the two women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, closer together. At one point in the story, “the two women moved a little closer together” in response when the men trivialize what trifles women go through (Glaspell 5). The women see things in the house that the men cannot due to the men never having to experience being in the place of a housewife. The men failed to see the little details that women could see. “Belittling the women, the condescending men exclude them from the legal investigation, doubting the women could recognize a forensic clue”, the men doing this causes their view of the crime to be incomplete, and they fail to recognize that the women were the men’s greatest investigators of this case (Kamir). Mr. Hale even completely ridicules the intelligence of the women altogether by saying “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” (Glaspell 6).

Female characters in the play express a desire to help each other in a time of need. In the play “Trifles” Mrs. Hale says, “(with a slow look around her.) I wonder how it would seem never to have had any children around. (Pause.) No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird—a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too” (1045). She started to realize that this woman has been going through a hard time and her husband is the one to blame for that. The critic Karen Stein explains,

Looking back on American history, women have many times been belittled by men. This can be clearly seen in early American life; women were unable to own property and were reliant on their husbands. “Trifles”, a play by Susan Glaspell, highlights the absurd attitude men had, and even still do have, toward women. The women of this story are to stay and tidy around the house while the men are out investigating the murder of Mr. Wright. It is in doing the seemingly menial task the women discover Mrs. Wright’s motive to kill; a detail the men have yet to figure out.

Wright remains silent; Glaspell does not add her in the dialogue of the play. Glaspell’s choice to keep Mrs. Wright silent and out of the dialogue shows how women in Glaspell's society remained silent because of the Dominance that the men asserted. Another example of the men enforcing the society's status quo is when Mr. Hale states “It never seemed a very cheerful place” and the County Attorney replies by stating” No--it's not cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the homemaking instinct.” the attorney mocks Mrs. Wright as if to say that she doesn’t have the one thing that a woman is supposed to be good at.

The women in the play contradict this idea and prove that what appears to be trifles are the most important evidence in solving the case. The primary reason for why the women are capable of solving the murder is because of their use of empathy. They empathize with Minnie Wright’s dysfunctional marriage with John Wright which is embodied in the isolated location and cold atmosphere of the farm house. To follow, the women are able to sympathize with the state of Minnie Wright’s kitchen. The women realize the unusual messy condition of Mrs. Wright’s kitchen is a representation of her giving up on her marriage and the simple fact that she has had enough of Mr. Wright’s pernicious relationship.

By using a play by play of the scenes in the play, the article pays close attention to the “trifles” the women paid close attention to while the men ridiculed them for it. The article also mentions how, “women’s responsibilities and concerns tend to remain somewhat distinct from men’s.” Because of this

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.

The story of “Trifles” exposes the sexism that women dealt with then, and still to some extent deal with today. The men show major examples of diminishing and downplaying the women’s intelligence when ignoring them throughout examining the crime scene. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale find incriminating evidence against Minnie, but the men never think to ask them their opinion; they are too preoccupied searching for solid tangible, evidence. Although the women find evidence to believe Minnie is the killer, I believe they feel somewhat responsible for her. This concluding that both genders are somewhat sexist. The men on the husband’s side, and the women on Minnie’s side. Perception differs with their gender. While the men look for “something to show anger, or sudden feeling”, something more obvious; the messy kitchen is labeled as bad housekeeping, instead of being used as evidence. The clues are presented but their male perception enables the men from seeing them. (Glaspell’s)