Trifles By Susan Glaspell Analysis

- Because it shows that Mrs. Wright knows how to knot a rope its ironic that she uses that term as mrs. Wright used a knot to kill her husband .

Here the tone shifted from prideful to authoritative. Dee demanded to own the two quilts. Mama said the quilts had been made by her ancestors and she “hung up on them on the quilt frames on the front porch and made them (762).” The quilt frames symbolize the object which helps organize and keep the family's generations alive, and the front porch symbolizes the connection of the family with the world. Mama knew the quilts were what kept the generations together, regardless of what the people around thought or did.The quilts needed to be used in order to keep the family traditions alive. Soon after, the protagonist came up with an excuse and said the “lavender [pieces], [came] from old clothes” which had been “handed down (762).” The lavender symbolizes love and devotion. The old clothes symbolize the legacy of the family's heritage. Although Dee only wanted to the quilts, Mama felt her past family's love and devotion through the quilts. Dee wanted the quilts because to preserve them, not because of an emotional connection to them. In addition, the young woman continued to offend her mother to the point where Mama told her the quilts were for Maggie, the youngest sister, and Dee exclaimed how her sister could never “appreciate the quilts.” She continued and said “She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use (762).” Everyday use represents the “everyday use” of customs and true purpose of the quilts. Although Dee thinks her sister will destroy the blankets through sex and daily use, Mama wanted her to understand how everything she wanted had a special purpose in their

In Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers,” Mr. Wright was found strangled in his bed; his wife was abnormally quiet and dull and claimed she did not wake up. Although Mrs. Wright doesn’t initially appear capable of murder, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale conclude she strangled her husband to death, as evidenced by the crazily sewn quilt patch, the unhinged bird cage, and the mutilated canary corpse, which revealed Mrs. Wright’s motive.

The narrator sets the scene; the cold kitchen of the farmhouse the day after John Wright was found murdered in his own bed with a rope around his neck. Nothing has been touched except a fire has been started on the stove to warm the place a bit for when the sheriff and the county attorney would arrive to access the situation and look for a motive. Mrs. Wright who had been found the morning before just rocking back and forth in the kitchen rocker and pleating her apron that lay on her lap, over and over

At the end of the play the county attorney makes a sarcastic comment to Mr. Hale that at least they found out Mrs. Wright was not going to quilt it, and asked the ladies what they called it. Ms. Hale, holding the bird in her pocket, answered and told him that they called it – knot it (Glaspell, 2011).

Trifles, written in the early 1900’s by Susan Glaspell, is a one-act play illustrating how women can overreact to their own emotions, allowing these emotions to cloud their judgment. This is shown by describing the feelings of two women who are willing to defend a suspect, blame the victim, and go so far as to hide evidence, to protect another woman from being charged with murdering her husband. Mrs. Wright is the suspect in the murder of her husband, who was strangled in his sleep, found with the rope still around his neck. The sheriff and an attorney are examining Mrs. Wrights home for evidence. Mr. Henderson, the attorney, speaking of Mrs. Wright says, “Here’s a nice mess, ..Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper,

The play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is type of murder mystery that takes place in the early 1900’s. The play begins when the sheriff Mr. Peters and county attorney Mr. Henderson come to attempt to piece together what had happen on the day that Mr. Wright was murder. While investigating the seen of the murder, they are accompanied by the Mr. Hale, Mrs. Hale and Mr. Peters. Mr. Hale had told that Mrs. Wright was acting strange when he found her in the kitchen. After taking information from Mr. Hale, the men leave the women in the kitchen and go upstairs at seen of the murder. The men don’t realize the plot of the murder took place in the kitchen.

     Mr. Hale continues, “’I didn’t see or hear anything. I knocked at the door. And still it was quiet inside. […] I opened the door […] and there, in that rocker’ pointing to it ‘sat Mrs. Wright’” (190). Mr. Hale says that Mrs. Wright looked “’queer’” (190) — like she didn’t know what she was doing. Mr. Hale says he told Mrs. Wright, “’I want to see John’” (191), and Mrs. Wright just laughed. Mr. Hale goes on, “’so I said a little sharp, ‘Can I see John?’” (191). Back then, men would run out of patience very quickly with a woman if the woman did not bow down to every command or act quickly enough. Mr. Hale says that after Mrs. Wright told him Mr. Wright was dead “of a rope around his neck,” Mr. Hale went out and called Harry in case help was needed upstairs. Mr. Hale tells the county attorney that they did indeed find Mr. Wright upstairs with a rope around his neck, and Harry advised him not to touch anything.

Harry is staying over after a dinner party that ran late, and he gave Nick those ~~eyes when Nick brought out blankets for him to sleep on the couch, so Nick let Harry into his own bed - frankly it’s like the kid of doing it ON PURPOSE to fuck with Nick’s iron will - with stern instructions to “SLEEP, popstar, some of us have to get up in, oh crap, five bloody hours. So I don’t want to hear you!”

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

The quilt is one major clue as to how Minnie killed her husband. The women were trying to figure out if she was going to sew or not the quilt. Well, Mr. Wright was strangled in a strange manner, just how the knot was messed up in red string. The men laughed it off butt Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters knew what had happened.

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 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

The play is based towards the end of the 19th century during the winter season in a traditional rural America farming town. The setting is "the kitchen in the now abandoned farmhouse of John Wright" where "signs of incompleted works" (Glaspell, 1916, p. 5) appear as "signs of incompetent" housekeeping to the men but as signs "of a disturbed consciousness" to the women (Noe, 1995, p. 39). The kitchen is described as