Symbolism In Trifles By Susan Glaspell

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

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.

Wright before she married to John Wright. According to Mrs. Hale, the old Mrs. Wright was a full of life and joy just like a canary bird. A canary bird is a small vibrant, colorful songbird that is full of life. The bird itself represented the younger Minnie Foster and how she lived. Mrs. Hale herself relates the bird to Minnie Wright “She--come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself--real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and fluttery. How--she--did—change” (733). Mrs. Hale, who knew Mrs. Wright before she was married tells Mrs. Peters of how lively and happy Minnie used to be. Insight of Minnie’s old life is shared through Mrs. Hale’s conversation with Mrs. Peters as Mrs. Hale tells Mrs. Peters about the younger Minnie: “I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang” (734). After marrying Mr. Wright all her liveliness was gone, it was like her husband had taken the life out of her. Mrs. Wright got herself a bird to try to restore the spiritedness she had lost, the absence of kids and the loneliness the silence of the house created. The bird brought renewed happiness to Mrs. Wright, she had hope of the life she once had but “…Wright wouldn't like the bird--a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too" (734). Instead Mr. Wright killed the bird, and in the sense of strangling the bird he strangled his wife by preventing her

In the end Susan Glaspell uses many objects in the setting to add symbolic meaning to the story. Glaspell uses the dead canary, the broken bird cage, and the dirty kitchen all to give hidden insight to the story if read correctly and deciphered with an open mind. Trifles was written to show the struggles of women in this day and age and uses the stereotypical assumption that women stick to the kitchen and making quilts when really and truly the woman solve the case without even having to try while the men are searching for clues in all of the wrong

Wright. They discuss her childhood, her life with John, and the quilt that she was making before she was put in prison. They realize how very much Mrs. Wright had changed over the years and how miserable her life with John Wright had been. The women express sympathy, unlike the male characters, over what the kitchen disorder would mean emotionally to Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Hale says "I'd hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticizing." (Glaspell 1387) They talk about the murder, asking each other if they think Mrs. Wright did it. The women can’t imagine why, if she did it, she put a rope around his neck to kill him , because "there was a gun in the house", (Glaspell 1388) and that would have been easier. They start to talk about the quilt she was making. The men come in and laugh as the women look at the unfinished quilt. The sheriff says " They wonder if she was going to quilt it or knot it!” (Glaspell 1388) poking fun of the women. The men go outside and the women notice the sewing is perfect until they find a patch that is messy. Mrs. Hale suddenly takes it and fixes it. She says "what do you suppose she was so nervous about? " (Glaspell 1389) They find an empty bird cage and wonder where the bird is. The women then find Mrs. Wright’s pet bird. It has been killed, and she has hidden it in her sewing box. When Mrs. Hale hears the men returning, she hides the dead bird under some quilt pieces. They decide, quickly that

The play is filled with symbols, especially the broken cage and the dead bird, which could have represented Minnie Wright herself, a woman whose zest for life had been squeezed out of her by her tyrant of a husband. The women discuss Minnie’s life. Mrs. Hale remembered Minnie Wright as a happy, beautiful, gifted young girl before the years of toil and mistreatment by John Wright had turned her into a sad, lonely and perhaps, battered woman (1624). Mrs. Hale was sympathetic because she also was a farm wife but at least, she had her children to keep her company. Mrs. Hale felt guilty that she hadn’t taken the time to visit Minnie Wright but she excused herself saying that their was so much work to do on the farm and the Wright place never looked cheerful. Moreover, we must notice that neighbors were few and far away from each other. Houses were miles apart separated by farmland and rough country; therefore visiting was a daylong trip.

Once he married Minnie, John Wright succeeded in his attempt to isolate her from the rest of the world. The pretty girl who sang in the church choir was locked away in her symbolic cage, exactly as the canary was. The Wright home was described as “…down in a hollow and you don’t see the road. I dunno what it is but it’s a lonesome place and always was.”

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

Susan Glaspell’s play “Trifles” revolves around the murder investigation of John Wright, which took place at his farmhouse. The prime suspect of the investigation is John’s wife Mrs. Wright who had been apprehended due to her presence at the crime scene when the murder occurred. Mrs. Wright requested her friends to accompany the authorities at the site of the homicide, in order to bring her some of her belongings. While the authorities searched the house for evidence linking Mrs. Wright to the crime, her friends inadvertently came across some compelling clues that may have had something to do with the murder after all. Glaspell’s use of gender roles is embodied throughout the play. Indications of female subordination are an example of Glaspell’s use of gender roles. As Mrs. Wright’s friends Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter reached the scene of

In the play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell, the central action revolves around a murder. John Wright has been murdered by his wife; the sheriff, the county attorney, and a neighbor named Lewis Hale investigate the house for clues to prosecute Mrs. Wright. As the three men search for evidence, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale put together their own clues to find out the reason why Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. In searching for clues, the 3 men constantly put the 2 women down for paying attention to “womanly” things like Mrs. Wrights fruit freezing. Throughout the investigation, the 2 women gather their own evidence, that seem unimportant to the men but important to women. In doing their own investigation, the two women grow empathetic to Mrs. Wright; she has suffered emotional abuse and neglect for years. One piece of evidence is the Mrs. Wrights dead canary. The climax of the play happens when the two women hid the dead canary and remove the motive needed to convict Mrs. Wright.

“Trifles” a short play written by Susan Glaspell (672-676), is a one-act play about Mrs. Wright who is currently in custody for the murder of her husband. The play takes place in Mr. and Mrs. Wrights home. The sheriff arrives with the county attorney along with Mrs. Peters the sheriff’s wife and Mrs. Hale they riffle thru the home looking for any evidence that might convict or release Mrs. Wright from charges of murder. The one act play is chucked full of symbolism I will attempt to locate, discus and enlighten you to the many wonders of “Trifles”. The symbols in the play represent a series of clues that the men cannot see because the clues are embedded in domestic items that are specific to women.

The Unfinished Quilt In Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, minor details emerge as significant symbols throughout the plot of the play. Minnie Foster’s life is portrayed through these symbols, a life in which she struggled with the horror of an abusive husband. While these symbols led the men in the play astray, the women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, were able to properly assess the clues left in the kitchen. One of the clues left at the crime scene was a quilt that Mrs. Wright was working on. This particular object is representative of the entire plot of Trifles because the women were able to put together all the details that revealed the underlying truth behind the murder of Mr. Wright by analyzing the inconsistency of the quilt.

In the play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell the character of the play are trying to investigate a crime that has been committed in Mr. Wrights home. All the men in the play have a job in the public and the women were do domestic work, as the genre role implies that women should be house wives, while the men are in charge of the important public work, such as in this case being a sheriff, and a county attorney. Throughout the investigating the women found many evidence leading to the crime, but the men laugh at the women saying that everything they worried about was insignificant, without realizing that they are finding evidence that lead to the guilt of Mrs. Wrights. Therefore, Susan Glaspell chooses to use the title “Trifles” in her play to portray irony of the seemingly insignificant things found by the women lead to the evidence of the crime. However, the general roles come into play it prevents the men to take the women serious, because the women are supposed to do domestic work.

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

Trifles is a short play written by Susan Glaspell about solving the murder of a farmer, John Wright. In the story, John Wright’s wife was accused of strangling him to death while he was sleeping. The play was based on an actual murder case Glaspell covered, back when she was a journalist, about a woman named Margaret, who they renamed Minnie Wright for the play (Kennedy, Trifles). Glaspell admitted that she came back to the house of Margaret couple of times after she was already in prison, and told herself that she will make a play or a story about the crime someday (Kennedy, Trifles). The Provincetown Players first performed this play on August 8, 1916 at the Wharf Theatre, Provincetown, Massachusetts (American Literature 1).