Susan Glaspell tells the story of a murder in a small town in the midwest. The man who was murdered was Mr. Wright, and everyone believes the guilty party may be his wife, Mrs. Wright, but two other women in the story decide to conduct an investigation of their own to try to solve this murder. In a scholarly essay about this story, Judith Kay Russell tells how the three women in the story are like the three fates from Greek mythology. Each woman plays a specific role in the tragic fate of Mr. Wright, and Russell goes into detail about each woman to emphasize that they are only powerful together. Russell’s essay begins with the story of Mrs. Hale. She is the leader of the three women. Russell calls her “Clotho the spinner, the sister who spins the thread of life” (Russell). She is the woman who begins the process. The one who takes something with no order and shapes it into something that is usable. Mrs. Hale’s role is to convince the other two women what she believes happens, and she is able to do this but altering reality slightly. Mrs. Hale at one point alters the stitching on a quilt that Mrs. Wright was working on …show more content…
(Glaspell 640). This proves that Mrs. Hale is trying to change reality because she obviously does not want others to see the true reality. This Further proves that Mrs. Hale is spinning the fate of Mr. Wright, but she is not doing it alone. Mrs.
Peters is the next woman who is seen as the second fate. Her role in the fates is “Lachesis the Disposer of Lots” (Russell). This means she takes the tread spun by Mrs. Hale and gives it shape and purpose. She is like the one who takes what Mrs. Hale finds and convinces other to believe it. Without Mrs. Peters, there would be no purpose for anything Mrs. Hale did. Mrs. Peters finds a dead canary, and tells how it is like Mr. Wright due to the fact that someone also killed it by strangling it (Glaspell 642). This dead canary really affects Mrs. Peters because it reminds her of a tragic time from her past, which is why she feels so strongly that something needs to be done. It was in this moment that she no longer thinks objectively, but she is thinking subjectively (Russell). This is when she truly steps into the role of the second
fate. The last woman is Mrs. Wright, and she is seen as “Atropos the Cutter of the Thread” (Russell). Her role is more symbolic then the others due to the fact that disrupts the thread of life. Mrs. Wright ultimately decides the fate of her husband. Mrs. Wright’s story claims that she laid next to her husband while he was killed and did not hear anything (Glaspell 636). This story seems impossible but no one else is around to say if it is true or not. This is why Mrs. Wright is the ultimately the one who decides the outcome of the reality that has been created and shaped by the other two women. Glaspell’s story is one that seems like nothing really makes connections, but Russell was able to take the women in the story and relate them to something that is easy to understand. The fates each have a special role, but they all three must work together in order to actually serve a purpose, so without the role of one woman nothing would ever be the same.
Whether it was Homer or George, a small town or being sick in bed, or murder or a peaceful death, both women attempted to overcome failed love, and ended up being consumed by that and death. The comparison of both “Jilting” situations is explained by conflicts that the women have with themselves and others in each story and the symbolic deaths that happened at the end of each
Born in 1867, Susan Glaspell was raised in rural Davenport, Iowa during a time where young ladies were expected to marry and raise a family. Glaspell never conformed to this expectation; instead graduating from Duke University, becoming a reporter for Des Moines Daily News, and becoming a successful author and playwright. During her years as a reporter, she covered the story of Margaret Hossock, a farm wife in Iowa accused of murdering her husband. This would later serve as her inspiration for Trifles. Glaspell was a woman who bucked societal expectations but was not blind to the plight other women faced. (Ozieblo) Trifles shows how silencing a person’s soul can be just as dangerous as taking the song out of a caged canary; stealing
Notably, one of the principal ideas presented in Glaspell’s work is the concept of gender roles, moreover, the notion of institutional misogyny present in 20th century America. These said ideas are fleshed out through the characters of the play. The play opens with the introduction of five characters: Sheriff Peters, Hale, County Attorney
She got the idea for the play and short story, after she covered a murder of a woman on a farm. In both of Glaspell’s pieces, the main character, Mrs. Wright, is accused of killing her husband. Minnie Wright was a farmer’s wife who didn’t have much contact with the outside world. The murder investigation took place inside her home. Three men are used to investigating the case and two women come with them.
The major idea I want to write about has to do with the way Mrs. Hale stands behind Mrs. Wright even though it seems like everyone else especially (the men) would rather lock her up and throw away the key. We see this right away when she gets on the County Attorney for putting down Mrs. Wright’s house keeping. I find this to be wonderfully symbolic in that most women of this time usually allowed the men to say whatever they wanted about their sex, never standing up for themselves or each other
Glaspell spent more than forty years working as a journalist, fiction writer, playwright and promoter of various artistic. She is a woman who lived in a male dominated society. She is the author of a short story titled A Jury of Her Peers. She was inspired to write this story when she investigated in the homicide of John Hossack, a prosperous county warren who had been killed in his sleep(1).Such experience in Glaspell’s life stimulated inspiration. The fact that she was the first reporter on scene, explains that she must have found everything still in place, that makes an incredible impression. She feels what Margaret (who is Minnie Wright in the story) had gone through, that is, she has sympathy for her. What will she say about Margaret? Will she portray Margaret as the criminal or the woman who’s life has been taken away? In the short story Minnie Wright was the victim. Based on evidence at the crime scene, it is clear that Minnie has killed her husband; however, the women have several reasons for finding her “not guilty” of the murder of John Wright.
Grose, Janet L. “Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and ‘A Jury of Her Peers’: Feminine Reading and
Wright’s life and the way that the women help in sewing up the loose ends. Mrs. Peters is at first concerned that Mrs. Hale is going to take out the stitches and re-stitch them correctly. She asks, “Oh, what are you doing, Mrs. Hale?” (881). Mrs. Hale replies that she is “just pulling a stitch or two that’s not sewed very good” and that she will “just finish up this end” (881). This is ironic because the women end up sewing up her defense the way they sewed up her quilt. It is ironic that the two women end up being in charge of Mrs. Wright’s fate when they are not in charge of their own. Mrs. Peters is another example of the situational
Devising the perfect murder is a craft that has been manipulated and in practice dating back to the time of the biblical reference of Cain and Abel. In the play, “Trifles” exploration is focused on the empathy one has for a murderer who feels they have no alternative from their abuser. As a multifaceted approach, the author Glaspell gives her audience a moral conflict as to whether murder should be condemned based on the circumstances rather than the crime. Presenting Mrs. Wright as the true victim of the crime of domestic abuse rather than a murderer gives Glaspell a stage which shows her audience the power of empathy.
In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles Mr. Wright’s murder is never solved because the two women in the story unite against of the arrogance of men to hide evidence that would prove Mrs. Wright as the murderer. The play Trifles is about the death of farmer Mr. Wright and how the town sheriff and attorney try to find evidence that his wife Mrs. Wright killed him. As the play progresses the men’s wives who had come along were discovering important pieces of evidence that prove the men’s theory but chose to hide from them to illustrate the point that their ideas should have been valued and not something to be trifled. The very irony of the play comes from its title trifles and is defined as something that isn’t very important or has no relevance to the situation that it is presented to. In this play the irony of the title comes from the fact that the men find the women’s opinions on the case trifling even though the women solve the crime which ends up being the downfall of the men as they would have been able to prosecute Mrs. Wright if they had listened which made the women’s opinions not trifling. Glaspell was born in an age where women were still considered the property of men and they had no real value in society in the eyes of men except for procreation and motherhood. This attitude towards women was what inspired Glaspell to write the play Trifles and to illustrate the point that women’s attitudes should be just as valued as men’s and to let women have a sense of fulfillment in life and break the shackles that were holding them only as obedient housewives. Trifles was also inspired by a real murder trial that Glaspell had been covering when she was a reporter in the year 1900. Glaspell is a major symbol of the feminist movement of l...
In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles a man has been murdered by his wife, but the men of the town who are in charge of investigating the crime are unable solve the murder mystery through logic and standard criminal procedures. Instead, two women (Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters) who visit the home are able to read a series of clues that the men cannot see because all of the clues are embedded in domestic items that are specific to women. The play at first it seems to be about mystery, but it abruptly grows into a feminist perspective. The play Trifles written by Susan Glaspell can be considered a revolutionary writing in it its advocacy of the feminist movement.
...lso becomes complicit in keeping information from her husband and other men. She too--owing to the loss of her first child--understands what loss means and what Mrs. Hale means when she says that women "all go through the same things" (1180).
Susan Glaspell, from Davenport, Iowa is only the second woman to win a Pulitzer Prize [1]. Much of her writing is strongly feminist, mostly dealing with how society viewed women and the prevalence of male dominance. Possibly, the idea behind the play “Trifles” was based on a woman named Margaret Hosack from Iowa, who is thought to have killed her husband due to his abusive behavior. Susan Glaspell was influenced by this story when writing ‘Trifles’ because she worked at the Des Moines Newspaper at the time of the event and in
In final analysis, Susan Glaspell techniques of using symbolism and stereotype to arise a disputatious topic of murder between spouses to show her view on women oppression can be observed with in the play. The manner the play writer uses literary techniques of stereotype to describe how women shun from society just for been the wrong gender for the time period. Symbolism saturates the production with meaning that create sympathy for women being oppressed by
Glaspell not only exposes how the characters have different perspectives but she also makes the reader realize the differences between male and female perception in the play. The play is about perception, and what is actually important is not the death of Mr. Wright but the life of Mrs. Wright. Truly, perception is different not only for men and women but also for each individual person, for it determines one's ability to perceive the truth and to achieve happiness.