D5.
1. What attitudes towards women do the Sheriff and the County Attorney express? How do Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters react to these sentiment?
The Sheriff and the County Attorney attitude towards the women is condescending. When Mrs. Peter’s made reference to Mrs. Wright’s fruits the Sheriff remarked that is was just like women to be concerned with trivial things rather than the important matter at hand (murder). Mrs. Peter and Mrs. Hale take offense, however, they hold their tongues until the men left the room.
2. Why does the County Attorney care so much about discovering a motive for the killing?
If the County Attorney finds a motive they can convict Mrs. Wright of killing her husband.
3. What does Glaspell show us about the position of
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What is so suggestive in the ruined birdcage and the dead canary wrapped in silk? What do these objects have to do with Minnie Forster Wright? What similarity do you notice between the way the canary died and John Wright’s own death?
This suggest that Mr. Wright was a hostile man and killed the canary. Mrs. Wright did not have any children and felt very lonely. The canary was very dear to her. The dead canary died of a broken neck similarly Mr. Wright died by hanging with a rope around his neck.
8. What thoughts and memories confirm Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale in their decision to help Minnie beat the murder rap?
Mrs. Hale reminisced on how cheerful Minnie was before she got married to Mr. Wright and told Mrs. Peters that he probably killed the bird. Then Mrs. Peters told Mrs. Hale about a childhood experience. Her pet was killed by a boy and if she was not being held back she confessed she would have hurt him. Both women were sympathetic towards Mrs. Wright’s plight and hid the dead canary.
9. In what places do Mrs. Peter’s show that she is trying to be a loyal, law-abiding sheriff’s wife? How do she and Mrs. Hale differ in background and
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Peter’s tries to be loyal to her husband throughout the conversation with Mrs. Hale. When Mrs. Hale objects to the men searching Mrs. Wright’s home Mrs. Peters reminds her that it was the law and cautions Mrs. Hale not to touch anything like the men directed them not to. Mrs. Peters is different from Mrs. Hale in that she was not raised in town and not familiar with the Wrights. She is also calmer and more rational than Mrs. Hale. While Mrs. Hall was quick to blame the event on Mr. Wright’s behaviour towards his wife, Mrs. Peters suggested reasons as to why it could not be so.
10. How do you sum up the play’s major theme?
The page major theme is that it is the small things (trifles) can help to bring understanding of the bigger picture. While the men spent their time looking for hard evidence as motive for the murder, the women managed to find, unintentionally, small clues that gave them an idea of what the motive was for Mrs. Wright to kill her husband.
Also, discuss the following in about 50
It is no surprise the police have arrested Mrs. Wright, especially since Mr. Wright was killed right next to her. Her nonchalant attitude towards his death and how she cares more about her personal items, like her apron and canned fruits. The sheriff sees through her lies and that's why he arrested her as the primary suspect. Mr hale
they not turn over the evidence and let the justice system take over? Perhaps they know that the
Up to this point, she had always thought that murder was murder and there were no exceptions to the law. Mrs. Peters says, “The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale” (278). Now, for the first time in her life, she sees that Minnie might have had justification for killing her husband. Minnie has every right to kill her husband. John Wright put her through enough misery and pain for a lifetime.
Speaking with the females, Henderson and the other men make a key mistake that the women get their identity from their relationship to men. For example, Henderson tells Mrs. Peters that just because she is married to the sheriff, she is also married to the law so she is a reliable to obey the law. Mrs. Peters suggests that over the course, she has discovered a different aspect of herself that ties more closely to her experience as a woman than to her marriage to Mr. Peters. Mrs. Hale concludes, all women go through...
The Sheriff, Attorney, and neighbour Mr. Hale look for evidence while the women Mrs. Peters and Hale are left to their own devices in the kitchen. Condescendingly, the men mock the women’s concerns over Mrs. Wright’s stored preserves, its stated: “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.” (Hale, act 1) It’s inferred that women- who care only of trifles, something of little or no importance, must be trifles themselves. Ironically, these said trifles: the quilt, preserves, a little bird- which will be discussed later, are what solves this mystery. A major concern expressed by all the characters is motive; why would Mrs. Wright kill her husband? While discussing the marriage and disposition of the victim, its stated: “Yes--good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him. (Shivers.) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone.” (Mrs. Hale, act 1) Abuses, which have been hinted at all throughout the play are finally spoken of in these lines. Audiences find, that Mrs. Wright- “real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid” - would murder her
We then come to the part where the ladies are talking about Mrs. Peter’s interactions with the other women in town. Mrs. Hale said she was not part of the Ladies’ Aid (which seemed like the thing for the women to do in that town), she dressed shabbily which she never did before becoming Mr. Wright’s wife. Mrs. Hale also clearly states that she does not believe that Mrs. Wright killed her husband whereas Mrs. Peters is struggling with this, saying that the Attorney thinks it looks bad because she did not wake up when her husband was being killed in bed right beside her. Mrs. Hale takes the view I would by saying don’t blame her because obviously he didn’t wake up either or maybe he would be alive or at least maybe he could have awakened her in his struggle.
Mrs. Hales feels that her husband has a habit of getting mixed up on the story and she’s worried about that. In comparison, this detail is emphasized through his ramblings in Trifles, which sound like a two year old. It shows in both versions that their interaction with each other is taxing on their relationship. The Peters have a similar relationship to the Hales, but it is more deftly revealed. The sheriff is a a heavy man with a big voice, who was particularly genial with the law-abiding, as if to make it plain that he knew the difference between criminals and non-criminals.
The females begin responding “stiffly” rather than “quietly”(7) as before. This adjective usage serves to support the speech even more by allowing readers to see the progression from silence to a bold rebellion in the women regarding their husbands, for “by hiding the canary Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are also going against their husbands” (Bee2). Indeed, this act was the major act of defiance that secured the women’s strengthened devotions to each other rather than their husbands. Peters especially undergoes a drastic transformation when she eventually joins in as “support of her fellow oppressed women” (Block B 1). When, at the climax of the story, the bird is hidden from the men in the sentimental tin box, Glaspell exhibits the tension with the selection of detail. She chooses to focus on the clammy hands of Mrs. Peters as she stuffs the tin away and the quivering voice of Mrs. Hale as she denies knowing any information about the crime. The descriptions of the seemingly miniscule and weakening objects around her house match the “quiet desperation” (Schotland 3) Foster repressed until it overflowed the night before. Considering that the adjectives show how burdensome it is for the women to conceal the evidence, it truly demonstrates how strong the relationships between them has grown based
Mrs. Hale’s keen wit and patience contributes to her embodiment of The Fate sister Clotho the Spinner, which is even more evident in her correcting of Minnie Wright’s improper stitching (Russell). Mrs. Peters begins the process of investigation deeply devoted to keeping the law. She doesn’t want any disruption in the house, saying, “I don’t think we ought to touch things” (Glaspell p. 666) when Mrs. Hale began searching for clues. Upon finding the dead canary, Mrs. Peters view on the situation changes drastically, and she decides with Mrs. Hale to hide the tiny dead bird from the men. They both figure that if the dead canary was discovered, Mrs. Wright would be thought to be a mad woman, though it was likely Mr. Wright who killed it.
This symbol is where the desolation that Mrs.Wright felt. The dead canary is the representation of the companionship and how weak Mrs. Wright acted on the scene when Mr. Peters showed up. According to Elke Brown, Mrs. Wright thought that “Wright was a harsh man, who like to have his quiet and disapproved of conversation and singing” causing him to break the bird 's nest. Not only that but he killed his owns wife spirit, turning a happy, Minnie Foster into a lonely, desperate Minnie Wright. It is a reality that Mrs. Wright was pushed away to be in isolation. The second symbol in the play was Mrs. Wright 's quilting. Mrs. Hale realized that the quilt was uneven, and that stitches started well and then ended all wrong. It was “the first clue about Minnie 's real state of mind lies in the fact that parts of the quilt have been sewn together haphazardly, which showed Minnie’s state of mind”, according to Mr. Brown. Her incompleteness leads to quilting. This technique of self is to distress, and that was the way Minnie felt. At the beginning of time, Minnie and her husband had everything flowing until it went down the drain and felt abandoned by Mr. Wright. When this happen, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters felt the same way as Minnie. They talk about how it was not bad at all for Minnie to act like she did and left everything with no anger as the sheriff would have thought. Minnie 's friends also realize that her fruit province broke
Mr. Wright was a cruel, cold, and heartless man. He was also a very unsociable man. He abandoned his wife's contentment and paid very little attention to his wife's opinions. He even prevented her from singing. This is revealed about Mr. Wright during the conversations between Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters when they find the dead bird with a twisted neck in Mrs. Wright's sewing basket. Mrs. Hale points out, "She- come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself-real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and-fluttery. How-she-did-change" (Glaspell 1267). Mrs. Wright used to be a very high-s...
Mrs. Wright, however, justified killing her husband due to Mr. Wright trapping her inside the house and how Mrs. Wright job is only to be domestic wife. When Mrs. Hale (farmer’s wife) and Mrs. Peters (sheriff’s wife) discovered a dead bird with her neck bruised all over, they start to put the pieces to the puzzle together and ...
Mr. Hale found his neighbor, John Wright, strangled upstairs in the Wrights’ house with Minnie Wright, John’s wife, sitting calmly downstairs. With John Wright dead and his wife in jail, Mr. Hale, the sheriff, their wives, and the county attorney all crowded into the Wright’s house to try to find clues about the murder. While the men go upstairs, they leave the women downstairs “.worrying over trifles.” (“A Jury of Her Peers” 264) Unbeknownst to the men, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find clue after clue that would convict Minnie Wright of the murder. Instead of telling the men about the clues, the women hide the clues and the men have no idea what the women have found.
We see verbal irony in the words exchanged between Hale and the County Attorney. Hale showed how he felt about the women with his statement that “Well, women are used to worrying about trifles” (878). The County Attorney whom is a smarmy politician tries to smooth hurt feelings by saying “And yet with all their worries, what would we do without the ladies?” (878). This is said in a somewhat sweet voice, but one that is obviously somewhat sarcastic. The Sheriff also partakes in sarcasm. When he comes in and the women are discussing the quilt he shows how little he thinks of the competency of the two women with the statement “They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it” (881). This is met with an abundance of laughter by the men and “abashed” (881) expressions by the women. The quilt’s point in this is also a little
Wright was described as a beautiful women filled with such joy and life until she married John Wright. Mrs. Peter’s and Mrs. Hale feels sorry for her because her husband treated her so bad. Due to female bonding and sympathy, the two women, becoming detectives, finds the truth and hides it from the men. The play shows you that emotions can play a part in your judgement. Mrs. Peter’s and Mrs. Hale felt sorry that Mrs. Wright had one to keep her company no kids and she was always left alone at home. “yes good; he didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debt. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters just to pass the time of day with him. Like a raw wind that goes to the bone. I should of think she would have wanted a bird. But what you suppose went with it?” Later on in the play the women find out what happens to the bird. The bird was killed the same way Mrs. Wright husband which leads to the motive of why he was killed. Mrs. Wright was just like the bird beautiful but caged no freedom not being able to live a life of her own. Always stuck in the shadows of her husband being told what to do and