Trifles Critical Analysis

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.

Susan Glaspell’s one-act play “Trifles” was written in 1916. It was written based on real events. When Glaspell was a reporter, she covered a murder case in a small town in Iowa. Later, she wrote this short play which was inspired by her investigation and what she observed. Glaspell used irony, symbolism, and setting in her creation of the authentic American drama, “Trifles”, to express life for women in a male-dominated society in the early nineteen hundreds.

In Susan Glaspell's “Trifles”, the male characters are depicted as being more sensible, logical and all-knowing gender. It is the men in the play who hold the most noteworthy positions, for example, the county attorney and sheriff. They esteem finding the quickest response to Mr. Wright's murder. They would prefer not to squander in attempt to find the mystery, thus they neglect critical subtle elements, for example, the messy kitchen. They expect that it is more critical to assess the room where Mr. Wright was murdered than to break down how Mrs. Wright kept her home or the couple's relationship. In the earliest reference point of the play, the County Attorney

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.

Murder, torture, and mayhem are merely three of the unique problems that can be found throughout the one act play Trifles by Susan Glaspell. The writer opens up the story by explaining the situation of Mrs. Wright, a middle aged woman who is being accused of murdering her husband. The crime scene is a mess. A sheriff, the prosecuting attorney and their wives are looking in to the gruesome death that occurred upstairs in the Wright household. It is immediately found that the men focus their attention to the area around the body of Mr. Wright in search of evidence. However, it is the women begin to stumble across the clues that may lead to Mrs. Wright’s persecution. As more evidence is found we are lead to believe that Mrs. Wright did, in fact, kill her husband. By the end of the play the reader is still left wondering, why? Was it a case of self-defense, or is there something much deeper going on? Once a full understanding is reached, it becomes apparent that the only basis that should be used for dropping the charges of this case should be built on the notion of mental insanity. Mrs. Wright clearly demonstrates psychological tendencies that are symptomatic of Dissociative Disorders (Ben-Zvi, 145). With an evaluation of her past life, her behavior immediately after killing her husband, and evidence that is later found by the women, it becomes clear that Mrs. Wright was stricken with a Dissociative Disorder.

While each proses a serve of justice and determination to do the right thing; the men approach the crime scene emotionless, indifferent and determined to go in and get to the bottom of the mystery as quick as possible, and push aside the little details. Little do they know that the things they are putting off could be very essential to their case? For example, in a conversation between the attorney and Mr. Hale who remarks, “..I said to Harry that I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made such a difference to John..” who was interrupted by the attorney in mid conversation and interjects, “Let’s talk about that later, Mr. Hale. I do want to talk about that, but tell now just what happened when you got to the house.” (1127) Meanwhile, while the men are out on their hunt for clues, the women stay in the kitchen to look through Mrs. Wright’s things and discuss a motive for why she killed her husband. Glaspell proposes a plan that by looking deeper into circumstances, you may in turn fully understand its true meaning; leaving no stone left unturned.

Susan Glaspell's play Trifles explores male-female relationships through the murder investigation of the character of Mr. Wright. It also talks about the stereotypes that women faced. The play takes place in Wright's country farmhouse as the men of the play, the county attorney, the sheriff, and Mr. Hale, search for evidence as to the identity and, most importantly, the motive of the murderer. The attorney, with the intensions of proving that Mrs. Wright choked the husband to death, was interviewing Mr. Hale on what he saw when he came in to the house. The women, on the other hand, were just there to get some clothing for the wife who was in jail for suspected murder of her husband. However, the clues which would lead them to the answer

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 Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles, written in 1916, two female characters are left in the kitchen of a house where a murder has been committed, while the menfolk search around for clues. The men largely ignore the women and are mocking of them and their petty concerns on the occasions that they do speak to them. While the men are about looking for the “cold hard facts” of the murder, the women are in the kitchen bothering with “trifles” that display all of the details about the wife’s life and, most probably, her motivation for the murder. In this play, Susan Glaspell has written male characters that clearly display the “Ethics of Justice”, a sort of right is right and wrong is wrong view; while the women clearly embody the “Ethics of Care”, a view that takes relationships and feelings into account when judging the morality of actions.

"Trifles," a one-act play written by Susan Glaspell, is a cleverly written story about a murder and more importantly, it effectively describes the treatment of women during the early 1900s. In the opening scene, we learn a great deal of information about the people of the play and of their opinions. We know that there are five main characters, three men and two women. The weather outside is frighteningly cold, and yet the men enter the warm farmhouse first. The women stand together away from the men, which immediately puts the men against the women. Mrs. Hale?s and Mrs. Peters?s treatment from the men in the play is reflective of the beliefs of that time. These women, aware of

“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.

The play Trifles is a world-famous production written by Susan Glaspell in 1916 during the women’s suffrage movement. The women’s suffrage movement was a point in U.S. history when rights for women, like voting and gender equality, were greatly stressed to be enforced. Glaspell’s involvement in the movement did not go unnoticed. Today Glaspell’s plays are famous worldwide for her feministic and socialistic views on legal reform, and involvement in the women’s suffrage movement. However, the play Trifles stands out amongst her others due to it being based on a true murder story she covered as a reporter. The play is about a man named Mr. Wright who is discovered by his neighbor, Mr. Hale, with rope around his neck murdered. Upon discovering Mr. wright, the county attorney and sheriff get involved, along with Mr. Hales wife, Mrs. Hale, and the sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peters. Throughout the investigation at the Wright residence, the women are not asked for help, and are looked down upon by the men. While the men seldom ask the women for their opinion on the murder, the case unfolds right in front of the two wives’ eyes. Like the women in the play, Glaspell was unable to play a significant role in the murder case she was involved in, and her observations over small and minor details she thought may be of importance went unnoticed by the men. Throughout the play, Trifles, Glaspell symbolizes the conflict of men versus women seen during this period through recognition, the

In the Susan Glaspell 's play Trifles, gender plays a huge roll in everyday life. Trifles is an exemplary example of the war between male and female. It creates a scene where women are less deserving than the men. Women are used as stepping stones or told to remain dedicated to the male power. Females are the lesser creatures compared to the men who have the power. The play paints a scene where women are in compliance to this unwritten code of conduct expected for them. Towards the end of the play, the star women, lessen their dedication to the understood male power and begin their loyalty to their own gender.

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.