Trifles by Susan Glaspell In the short play "Trifles,” by Susan Glaspell, various questions and issues originate concerning with the bond between women, the difference between male and female, and what life was like in the early nineteen century for women. In addition, the importance and development of symbols are crucial. Throughout the play, Glaspell uses symbols to further and support Minnie’s isolation and lack of happiness in her life. Although the answers may be evident there is room for guesswork and doubt. The play is cleverly written because we are never introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Wright, to whom the entire dialogue and mystery is surrounding. This lack of the main characters makes it hard to know what really went on and whether anything was warranted or not. However, the intelligent use of symbols by Glaspell allows the reader to capture and examine various meanings. While the men are looking for clues and evidence against Minnie, they only seem to see a messy house that is inadequately taken care of (1618). At the same time, the women see a very different picture when they discovered a birdcage. As Mrs. Peters examines the birdcage she notices that the door is broken and mentions, “looks as if someone must have been rough with it” (1622). Neither woman knows if Minnie had a bird and Mrs. Hale contemplates the idea of the cat killing it. “ No, she didn’t have a cat…” Mrs. Peters replied. They later discover a dead bird wrapped in a piece of silk. Mrs. Peters exclaims, “ Somebody---wrung---its---neck” (1623). They heard steps approaching and Mrs. Hale hides the box with the dead bird under quilt pieces. The climax of the play is when the men return and county attorney sees the birdcage and questions the women a... ... middle of paper ... ... dialogue between the two women leads us to believe that Minnie’s husband broke the cage, representing Minnie’s life, and killed the bird. Both women take measures to make sure that the men do not learn this information and mislead the men in the existence of a dead bird. The idea of Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters being a panel of judges and not convicting Minnie lends credibility to the dispute that women were struggling against male oppression. Mrs. Hale, if anything, is definitely resentful of the men’s uncaring and criticizing comments towards the women. The men believe women give too much importance to little things and trifles (1618). Yet, the little things that the men dismiss are all that the women need to discern what happened to John Wright. On the other hand, her peers remember Minnie as a decent woman who used to have a life before she became a caged bird.
In this play, the women are housewives; responsible for bearing children, and keeping the house. They are often made fun of or made to feel less of themselves when they didn’t perform those duties to the specifications of the men. The city attorney openly criticizes Mrs. Wrights housekeeping skills by stating “here is a mess, dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper would you say, ladies?” (Glaspell 1109-1110). Mrs. Hale describes Minnie Foster as “real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and fluttery” (Glaspell 1114). But a lot of changes are evident once she marries Mr. Wright. She spends her days in isolation, focusing on her quilts, preserves, and caring for her canary. She didn’t receive any type of appreciation for her hard work. This defeats her mentally and she doesn’t have any joy left in her life. While looking for evidence in the murder, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale find red flags that support her mental decline, such as blocks on the quilt described as “all over the place” (Glaspell 1113), like she didn’t know what she was doing and a “dead bird in a fancy box, wrapped in a piece of silk” (Glaspell 1114). After the death of her beloved canary at the hands of her husband,
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
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
While Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are right in covering up for Minnie, Glaspell is wrong in portraying all men as jerks. Now as we approach the turn of another century, we see that there are plenty of men at this day in age that would understand Minnie’s actions and cover for her just like Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale. Surely, there were a few men a hundred years ago that would not have acted as Mr. Peters and Mr. Henderson, and would have covered and understood Minnie’s actions.
What further indicates the difficulty in deciding if Mrs. Wright killed Mr. Wright is the canary. Mrs. Wright shows that she loves the canary by trying to bury it in the pretty sewing box. This is not the action of someone who killed the canary. Mrs. Wright is also described as being like a bird. The reader can envision her as someone petite or slight. She is described as being sweet, pretty, timid and fluttery. It would take a lot for someone of this description to commit murder. On the other hand, Mr. Wright is described as someone who is difficult to live with. He is described by Mrs. Hale as having killed the bird like qualities in his wife. He appears to be an overbearing, unhappy person.
Social gender separations are displayed in the manner that men the view Wright house, where Mr. Wright has been found strangled, as a crime scene, while the women who accompany them clearly view the house as Mrs. Wright’s home. From the beginning the men and the women have are there for two separate reasons —the men, to fulfill their duties as law officials, the women, to prepare some personal items to take to the imprisoned Mrs. Wright. Glaspell exposes the men’s superior attitudes, in that they cannot fathom women to making a contribution to the investigation. They leave them unattended in a crime scene. One must question if this would be the same action if they were men. The county attorney dismisses Mrs. Hale’s defenses of Minnie as “l...
The short one-act play Trifles by Susan Glaspell, was years ahead of its time. Its time was 1916 but the subject matter is timeless. The aspect of this play that most caught my interest was the contrast between the men and women characters. This is a play written in the early 1900s but transcends time periods and cultures. This play has many strengths and few weaknesses, but helps to provide a very accurate portrait of early American women and the issues they dealt with in everyday comings and goings.
Glaspell has created the character of Henry Peters, who is portrayed as a middle-aged local sheriff and husband of Mrs. Peters and who criticizes the women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, on their findings by mocking at them stating, “They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it” (Glaspell 1116). With the given information of the character, the reader is unable to relate the character to the mystery since Mr. Peters himself has not had any direct relationships with the Wrights before the incident. Even though Mr. Peters’ role in the play is minute, this limitation helps move the attention towards the women. Any addition to Henry Peters’ character such as incorporating his past experiences as a police officer would distract the reader and lose the flow of the play.
In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, we observe like flies on the wall as two women discover the crimes of a peer and weigh her guilt against their own. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale find similarities within themselves and their experiences that mirror the feelings of Mrs. Wright prior to her alleged offense. Not only are we witness to this in their words, but in the stage business that takes place as well, denoted by descriptive stage direction. In their hearts, we see them struggle throughout the play with the social constructs of gender roles, guilt, and culpability.
"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 the powerless slot that has been made for them, manage to use their power in a way that gives them an edge. This power enables them to succeed in protecting Minnie, the accused. "Trifles" not only tells a story, it shows the demeaning view the men have for the women, the women?s reaction to man?s prejudice, and the women?s defiance of their powerless position.
Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, seems to describe the ultimate women’s suffrage story. No longer will men have an upper hand against women after reading this story. Cleverness will be the key to retaining power from the men in this story. The one thing that woman are criticized for, the idea that women tend to look at the ‘little picture’ instead of the ‘whole picture’, will be there path to victory. Two stories of revenge are told in this story, the revenge of suppression and revenge of being portrayed as ‘unsophisticated, unintelligent’ women. First we have the story of Mrs. Wright and the struggles with her husband, John. Married women throughout history have been portrayed and played the role as being inferior to the husband in marriage. This seems to be the case with Mrs. Wright. Even though John’s public image was somewhat respectable, it was obvious that behind close doors the story was different. There is evidence of abuse in this marriage. First, the discovery of the broken door leads me to conclude that John was very physical and anguished. Second, it is assumed that Mrs. Wrights husband had broke her canary’s neck. The canary, which of course had to be caged, was represented as the old Minnie Foster herself. The canary is a beautiful, free spirited bird that had a sweet voice, as Minnie had at one time. This was the end of the line and ‘Minnie Foster’ was about to be reborn. She would stand up for all those abused and suppressed house wives across the world and makes the first ‘final’ decision she had ever been allowed to make. The bird’s cage was her jail. The bird’s death was her freedom for the fate of the bird was the fate of her husband. John was discovered with a rope tied around his neck, the freedom of a women who could no longer be held down. This was the first implementation of women’s power in the story. The women at Mrs. Wright’s home played an important role in the story as well. The ‘professional’ detectives were busy about the house finding clues to indict Mrs. Wright in the murder case. They ridiculed the women in the house by ‘putting them in their place’ as typical ladies, so worried about small things and useless ordeals. Mrs. Hale noted the stitches in the quilt to be erratically stitched as if something were wrong.
In her landmark feminist play, "Trifles," Susan Glaspell offers a peek at the complicated political and social systems that both silenced and divided women during their struggle for equality with men. In this simple but highly symbolic tale, a farmer's wife, Minnie Wright, is accused of strangling her husband to death. The county attorney, the sheriff, a local farmer, the sheriff's wife and the farmer's wife visit Minnie's farm house. As the men "look for clues," the women survey Minnie's domestic environment. While the men scoff at the women's interest in what they call "trifles," the women discover Minnie's strangled bird to realize that Minnie's husband had killed the bird and Minnie had, in turn, killed him. They bond in acknowledgment that women "all go through the same things--it's all just different kind of the same thing" (1076). As their horror builds and the women unravel the murder, they agree to cooperate with one another, conspiring to protect Minnie against the men by hiding the incriminating "evidence."
I enjoyed this reading this play because the men in the play were typical men-folk. They put on this persona that they are the most important creatures on Earth. They act as if they were Sherlock Holmes himself when in actuality they are not nearly as vigilant as the female characters. Their high-mighty attitude made the women feel inferior and because of that common feeling they form a bond between the three of them. Through this bond they decided to keep the evidence they found and Mrs. Wright’s secret to themselves. Taking the box with the dead bird was them demonstrating gender loyalty and an act of rebelliousness against a the self-righteous male-dominate...
Most of the actions take place in the kitchen setting which demonstrates the author’s deliberate move to show the important details about the wifely role. The women hold their conversation in the unkempt kitchen, a domestic sphere that reveals everything about the lives of women. While the men were busy searching for clues around the farmhouse, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale see some evidence in the trifle that Mrs. Wright had left in the kitchen. The women can deduce that the messy kitchen with dirty pans gives a signal of incomplete work. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter spend most of their time in the messy kitchen that significantly reveal Mrs. Wright’s state of confusion (Manuel 61). Mrs. Hale understands Mrs. Wright’s experiences of loneliness and desperation from the male-dominated circumstances. The female characters sympathize with her situation by acknowledging the forces in her life that made her take the roles including that of murdering her husband. The men overlook the evidence that the women can trace in the house, and their dialogue suggests lack of sympathy towards women as noted from their humiliation and sarcasm towards women. For example, the women can relate the death of the canary to the murder scene. The attorney shows how woman’s concerns are unimportant, instead of sympathizing with Mrs. Wright for what has befallen her, they portray their women
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