Trifles By Susan Glaspell Essay

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 was written in the early 1900's by Susan Glaspell. This occurred far before the women's movement. Women were generally looked upon as possessions to their husbands. Their children, all wages, and belongings were property of their husbands. In Glaspell's story it is easily depicted as to what role the men and women portrayed in society at this time.

In today's society, we generally view upon everyone as equal beings who deserve equal rights. At the turn of the 20th century, this particular view didn?t exist. Men clearly dominated almost every aspect of life and women were often left with little importance. The Wright?s embody this view of roles in Susan Glaspell?s play Trifles. Mrs. Wright was a typical woman who suffered the mental abuse from her husband and was caged from life. In Trifles, a mixture of symbolism of oppression illustrates Mrs. Minnie Wright?s motives to kill her husband and to escape from imprisonment.

“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

Symbols are important, especially in literature. They have been known to inspire hope and life, in turn inspiring some of the most profound actions in the history of the world. Yet, humanity’s statement to symbols goes beyond us finding meaning in innominate or non-human objects. People assign humanity into objects, almost a part of themselves. This concept is clearly demonstrated in Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles. The work contains many element of symbolism that make important and relieving comments on the characters of the play and the themes of the story.

One of the women made the comment that Mrs. Wright used to be pretty and happy, when she was Minnie Foster not Minnie Wright. This is just the beginning of realizing that she was just pushed to far into depression and couldn't live up to John Wright's expectations anymore. The Wrights had no children and Mrs. Wright was alone in the house all day long. The women perceive John Wright to be a controlling husband who in fact probably wouldn't have children and this may have upset Mrs. Wright. They eventually find vacant bird cage and ponder upon what happened to the bird, realizing Mrs. Wright was lonely they figured she loved the bird and it kept her company. The women make reference to the fact that Mrs. Wright was kind of like a bird herself, and that she changed so much since she married John Wright. They begin looking for stuff to bring her and they find the bird dead and they realize someone had wrung its neck. This is when they realize Mrs. Wright was in fact pushed to far, John Wright had wrung her bird's neck and in return Minnie Wright wrung his.

Mrs. Wright lived her entire marriage alone, confined to a tiny house in the outskirts of town, with her only true companion a bird who sung to her, she loved that bird like it was her child. Mrs. Wright blamed her husband for her loneliness because he wouldn’t allow her to sing in church, have friends over, or have a telephone to even call people occasionally. Mr. Wright made her feel as though she was in solitary confinement in a prison this was not a home. At least she had her canary to keep her company, well until he took that away from her too.

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.

Before she married John, she used to sing in the choir, she was always very active in her community. After she got married, she never interacted with her community; she was always “lonely”. Minnie was a housewife alone all day while John was away at work. Minnie and John never had any children, "Not having children makes less work—but it makes a quiet house" (Susan Glaspell, 21). Mrs. Hale says, “Just to pass the time of day with him [John]… [Was] Like a raw wind that gets to the bone." (Susan Glaspell, 22). Minnie must have been miserable living with John, so she took up the bird. She possibly treated the bird as her child, singing to it and caring for it. She was devastated to have seen the birds’ neck wrung the way it was. She must have mourned the death of the bird the same as the death of a child. Mrs. Hale describes Minnie Foster as, “kind of like a bird herself -- real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and – fluttery”(Susan Glaspell, 22). When Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find Minnie's birdcage in the cupboard, they do not realize the importance of it until they find the dead bird with its neck “wrung” (Susan Glaspell, 23). Mrs. Hale says to Mrs. Peters, “No, Wright wouldn't like the bird -- a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too” (Glaspell, 25). Mr. Wright’s presumed killing is a “symbolic attack” (Brian Sutton, 172) on his wife, and

Before she got married, Minnie Wright was an exuberant and joyous young girl, and “she wore a white dress with blue ribbons, and stood up there in the choir and sang” (Glaspell 170). As many did, she got married with the maturity of a child, and once she entered the marriage, society expected her to immediately become a mother-woman. However, Minnie Wright could not fill this role. Due to the fact she was still a young child, she could not comprehend needing to sacrifice herself for her family. Her husband, as a result, smothered the child-like qualities and attempted to remove this youth until she became a sad and depressed; with such abuse, “a person gets discouraged – and loses heart” (Glaspell 164). The abuse of her husband, in trying to smother her youth and child-like qualities, made her depressed; however, this depression only fueled the fire of her impulsive and immature actions. It pushed her to act childishly and rashly. When her husband killed her pet bird, which was the only source of joy and song in her life, she killed him (Glaspell 170). Her impulsive and violent behavior erupted in a fit of rage, similarly to how Mrs. Peters did when a boy killed her pet kitten when she was a child. After this incident, she says that, “if they hadn’t held

“Trifles” a play by Susan Glaspell, emphasizes the thought that women were kept in their homes and their contributions to the home and family went unappreciated and unnoticed. The play gives readers a view of how women were view and treated during the 1900’s. As a female analyzing the play, Mrs. Wright’s motive for killing Mr. Wright was quite clear. Susan Glaspell gives her readers a feminist approach, to demonstrate how Mrs. Wright’s murdering of her husband is justified.

While the canary was incredibly lively and sang beautifully, so did Mrs. Foster. John Wright was awfully abusive towards Mrs. Wright, in the means that he required her to live her life comparable to a caged bird. He obtained her freedom from the outside world, in return, explains why she recognized herself in the bird. This explains for the reasoning of their house being far set back into the woods and having no telephone service. She ventured out, only when she was allowed, and assuming that John also did not allow her to have friends, this led to the killing of the canary.

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.

“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.

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.