Trifles 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, 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.

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).

Much like the kitchen, the birdcage is also used as a symbol for Mrs. Wright. In the play, Mrs. Peters finds the birdcage empty. The two ladies also find that the cage?s door hinge is pulled apart. The ladies conclude that someone had ?been rough with it.? The cage in the play suggests many things. A cage signifies imprisonment and captivity. This easily fits within the play and represents the confinement

One may ask How do all these things show that Mrs. Wright killed her husband? Well let me tell you. Mr. Wright got angry and ripped open the birdcage breaking the hinge then he grabbed the canary and in one swift motion breaking its neck, to calm down Mrs. Wright went and started sewing together her quilt not realizing all her frustration and rage was showing in her stitching. Then in the midst of her thinking she came up with the plan to kill Mr. Wright in the night strangling him like he strangled her canary and her soul. That is how the crazily sewn quilt patch, the unhinged birdcage,

While talking, the women find a fancy box belonging Mrs. Wright. Inside the box, is what they believe to be Mrs. Wright’s dead pet bird. They realize that “somebody – wrung – its – neck” (1172) Remembering a similar incident in her life, Mrs. Peters says, “When I was a girl – my kitten –there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes, ..If they hadn’t held me back I would have hurt him.” (1172) They place the dead bird back in the box, and then, surprisingly, they hide the box. You can almost see what’s going on in the mind of these two women as they must be imagining poor Mrs. Wright, horrified that her awful husband killed her bird, then she must have snapped and strangled him to end her own suffering.

As the women walk through the house, they begin to get a feel for what Mrs. Wright’s life is like. They notice things like the limited kitchen space, the broken stove, and the broken jars of fruit and begin to realize the day-to-day struggles that Mrs. Wright endured. The entire house has a solemn, depressing atmosphere. Mrs. Hale regretfully comments that, for this reason and the fact that Mr. Wright is a difficult man to be around, she never came to visit her old friend, Mrs. Wright.

When the two women come across the empty, broken bird-cage, they ponder the reason for the broken door and the fate of the canary who occupied it. Later they discover the dead bird wrapped in silk with its neck broken, presumably by the hands of Mr. Wright. The bird symbolizes Minnie Foster, the young choir girl. The dead bird symbolizes Minnie after marriage, when she loses her spirit, and the cage symbolizes her husband who mistreats and isolates her. While describing Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Hale compares her to the bird when she says to Mrs. Peters, " She used to sing real pretty herself”. ( 576) Literary critic Janet Stobbs Wright states," Only as a picture emerges of the way in which Minnie Foster has been changed by her marriage to John Wright, is a process of identification between the two women initiated".

Therefore, Mrs. Wright murdered her husband simply because he murdered her pet bird, and she did so the same way he murdered the bird, making the motive is unethical. Mrs. Hale finds a dead bird with a broken neck inside of Mrs. Wright’s sewing box wrapped in a cloth. Obviously as lonely as Mrs. Wright was the death of her bird would have been catastrophic for her. This is evidence of a motive proving Mrs. Wright killed her husband out of sheer revenge of the death of her bird, it was the last thing he was ever going to take away from her. Along with the broken cage Mrs. Peters states, “Why, look at this door. It’s broke. One hinge is pulled apart” (8). Then Mrs. Hale comments, “Looks like someone must have been rough with it” (8). This is how it happened, Mr. Wright came home from work in

     Next, Mrs. Peters finds a birdcage, and shortly after, Mrs. Hale finds the bird. There are many peculiar things about both of these items. First, the cage has a damaged door, which shows signs of forced entry. Now, Mrs. Wright is said to have loved the bird, and actually was heard to sing to herself more, after she bought the bird. So that leaves only John Wright to be the one who broke the cage. And, after the bird is found, we know why the cage was damaged. The bird, dead in the sewing box, is found strangled to death. Exactly the way that Mr. Wright died in his sleep. This is the single most important piece of evidence, yet both ladies decide to hide it from the detective.

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

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 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

Hale both decide to make a joke out of a murder. By hiding the truth from the authorities, they could have received charges for obstruction of justice and received jail time ( Cornell ). The other viewpoint would be from the women in the story or possibly anyone reading it. After years of constant neglect and criticism, Mrs. Wright decided to break out the cage of a marriage she was in with her husband. Feeling for her pain, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale mock the men as they investigate the crime scene. By not telling the truth to the Mr. Hale and the County Attorney, the women are getting revenge on the men for the they have been treating them.