Trifles By Susan Glaspell Research Paper

Wright’s defense, the men all head upstairs to go over the crime scene to search for clues. The women; Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters knew they were in the center of all the clues. “Women are used to worrying over trifles” Mr. Hale said, and because of that, the women uncovered all the clues that would lead to motive and the men would remain clueless. As for the messy kitchen that the attorney did notice but just chalked up to Mrs. Wright not being a good house wife, the ladies noticed that she was in fact in the middle of cleaning up. That half the table was wiped clean and the other half left as if she were interrupted. They also noticed that the towel that the attorney thought to be just thrown across the room was in fact covering a loaf of fresh bread that was to later be put in the bread box. They also knew that the dirty towel roller was probably that dirty from the man they sent to start the fire in the stove that morning so that the house would be warm by the time they arrived. The ladies were to gather some things to take to Mrs. Wright to the jail. They found her sewing basket under the corner table and were admiring the bright pieces and the log cabin pattern. They wondered if she was going to quilt it or knott it. The men thought this was funny and made fun of them. Unbeknownst to them that the ladies had just found what could be the evidence of Mrs. Wrights’ frame of mind. The ladies noticed that most of the

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,

Wright as if he were a cruel man, “he was a hard man, ..like a raw wind that gets to the bone.”(1171) After hearing this, Mrs. Peters compares how Mrs. Wright must have felt with a memory of her own past. “I know what stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died – after he was two years old, and me with no other then – I know what stillness is.” (1173) There is a sense of pity for the suspect, anger toward the victim, as if he must have deserved to die.

Mrs. Hale continues to inspect the house and notices that Mrs. Wright left work half-done lying around. Upon seeing a

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

In the early 1900's Susan Glaspell wrote many works, two stand out, the play "Trifles" and the short story "A Jury of Her Peers". Trifles was written in 1920, while "A Jury of Her Peers" was written the following year. Trifles was written in only ten days. The true greatness of these works were not recognized until the 1970's.

Second, Mrs. Wright enjoyed quilting, while Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale began looking at her quilting squares that Minnie Wright had recently been working on, and they found something odd with the quilt. Mrs. Hale said, “… this is the one she was working on, and look at the sewing! All the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at this! It’s all over the place!” (Glaspell 750). The stitching of the quilt was precise, and now it seems as if she did it nervously, as if she didn’t know what she was doing. The men came down stairs, the county attorney said, “Well ladies, have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or know it?” Mrs. Peters replies, “We think she was going to—knot it” (Glaspell 753). This quote also has a deeper meaning… John Wright was murdered by having a rope tied around his neck while he slept.

“Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is a play that is largely based on stereotypes. The most prevalent one is the inferiority of women over men, though the play also explores the differences between genders in general.

Susan Glaspell uses a variety of symbols in her play to demonstrate the stereotypical view and treatment of women by men during the start of the twentieth century. She intricately portrays the female characters in her story as intelligent, but passive due to the fact that males dismiss their ideas and conversations as unimportant. The play, Trifles, uses multiple symbols to show how men fail to recognize the intelligence of women, and oppress the feminists’ way of thinking throughout society.

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters showed that noticing the little things could make a difference. By noticing the mess in the kitchen and finding the strangled canary, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters were able to figure out that Mrs. Wright killed Mr.

Mrs. Wright is referred to when Mrs. Hale speaks of her by using her maiden name, when saying ?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.? The old rocking chair symbolizes Mrs. Wright as she has allowed herself to depreciate, just as the rocking chair has depreciated. ?The chair sagged to one side,? Mrs. Hale stated that the chair was not anything like she remembered, referring to the fact that Mrs. Wright has also changed since she

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

When the men leave the kitchen the ladies then feel free to look around. They gently handle the unbroken fruit knowing how much work it involved. The empty rocking chair strikes a nerve in them that the owner is gone from her somber kitchen. The women set about their duties of gathering up clothes for Mrs. Wright in a businesslike way.

Trifles is a one act play about two murder investigations the official formal one by the men as well as the unofficial informal one by the women.( Beatty, 1) Throughout the play the women in their own way solve the crime while the men hit a dead end. There are a variety of perceptions and interpretations of Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles”. These were the ones most attention-grabbing or noteworthy: the notion that the three women in this play Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Peters, and Mrs. Wright are allegorically based on the Fate sisters from Greek mythology; secondly, the connection and symbolism between Mrs. Wright (Minnie) and the objects within her house the quilts irregular and sloppy stitching signified the turmoil Mrs. Wright was going through, and lastly the oppression of women which is depicted in many situations including the men of the plays viewpoint on the women.

“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.