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Perspectives of the play trifles by susan glaspell
What does trifles mean in the short play written by susan glaspell
Trifles in a jury of her peers
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One in the same
In this play there is a murder but who is a mystery until the woman of the house is pointed at but what would her motive be? In this essay we will be comparing and contrasting the play Trifles and the short story “A jury of her peers” both written by Susan Glaspell and her character, plot and perspectives.
The characters in Trifles you get to see emotions rather then characterization. Since it is a play the audience must derive what they are feeling based off of the emotion shown through their words or the face and gestures they are making.The audience must conclude their feelings through their actions. In the short story the audience knows what they are thinking because it is being narrated. While the play does not tell you what they are feeling we can gather that from their
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Now if this were to happen in the play it would have given up the whole woman’s scene when they find the bird. Also not a line in the play is when the woman tell that they are sure of the fact that she committed this murder. “If it weren’t why do you and I understand? Why do we know what we know this minute?” These two lines could shed so much light on why mrs.wright murdered her husband. When the women withhold evidence which occurs in both the play and the short story..the short story’s makes it very clear that the woman are taking a grave risk.“The thing that would make certain the conviction of the other women.”This could put the other women in danger they are withholding evidence from their husbands and from the law.The woman take control of the scenario based off of them taking the evidence though they had not spent time with Mrs. Wright they covered up a murder for her.Without the woman taking the strangled bird the whole story and play would have ended with the right
Susan Glaspell was an American playwright, novelist, journalist, and actress. She married in 1903 to a novelist, poet, and playwright George Cram Cook. In 1915 with other actors, writers, and artists they founded Provincetown Players a group that had six seasons in New York City between 1916-1923. She is known to have composed nine novels, fifteen plays, over fifty short stories, and one biography. She was a pioneering feminist writer and America’s first import and modern female playwright. She wrote the one act play “Trifles” for the Provincetown Players was later adapted into the short shorty “A Jury of Her Peers” in 1917. A comparison in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” changes the titles, unfinished worked, and
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 ...
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
Wright also ultimately loses control over her destiny after gaining it for a moment when she kills Mr. Wright. The drugs take control of Sonny, while Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are the ones who take on this role and in a sense sway the path of Mrs. Wright’s life. The dead bird is an important aspect of this. It is the main component of evidence against her that the men are looking for, and is what shows her motive for the murder that she committed. Being abused and controlled throughout her marriage with no say in anything and finally having this pet bird that she could connect to and saw herself in meant a great deal to her, and when her husband took that away from her it was the last straw and brought her to end what was controlling her so that she could take on that role herself. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters realize this, and they end up protecting Mrs. Wright from the men. They know that she was abused and they pity her and believe that she had a right to kill her husband, and they feel sorry for her and do not want her to go to prison for it, so they hide the evidence from the men. This is the women playing the part of what the heroin is to Sonny and being the ones who start to control Mrs. Wright’s destiny and to keep her out of jail so she can live her life in
The stories Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” are both written by Susan Glaspell. The main event in both Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” is a murder in the kitchen. Both stories cover the murder of Mrs.Wright’s husband. But, while both Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” are about the same story, and the characters are the same, the points of view differ in the two texts.
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
Susan Glaspell wrote many literary pieces in the early 1900s. Two, in particular, are very similar in theme, which is the play Trifles and the short story “A Jury of Her Peers”. The Trifles was written in 1920 and “A Jury of Her Peers” was written in 1921, a short story, adapted from the play. Susan Glaspell was born in Davenport, IA July 1, 1876 as a middle child and the only daughter. In college, she wrote for her school paper, The Drake, and after Glaspell graduated, she started working for the Des Moines News. She got the idea for the play and short story, after she covered a murder about a woman on a farm.
The short story and the play written by Susan Glaspell are very much alike. The story takes place in an old country town in the early 1900’s. Mr. Hale has 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 in 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. The clues are little things like a half cleaned kitchen, sewing that is messed up, and the sugar jar being left open. The clues the women find are very noticeable to them, but a man would over look them without thinking twice.
Twentieth century society places few stereotypical roles on men and women. The men are not the sole breadwinners, as they once were, and the women are no longer the sole homemakers. The roles are often reversed, or, in the case of both parents working, the old roles are totally inconsequential. Many works of literature deal with gendered roles and their effect on society as a whole or on an individual as a person. "A Jury Of Her Peers" and Trifles, both written by Susan Glaspell, are works of literature that deal with socially gendered roles during the early nineteenth century. The two works are almost exactly alike in that the dialogue from "A Jury Of Her Peers" becomes the actor's lines in Trifles. The gendered roles in the early 1900s place the woman in the kitchen, serving meals, baking bread, and canning fruits and jellies. She was also expected to be a mother to her children and a caretaker to her husband. The man, on the other hand, was expected to take care of his family, providing the home and the food that the wife would prepare. Often when gender plays too much a part in a household, communication is lost. The husband can not see a person when he looks at his wife. This was the case in "A Jury Of Her Peers" and Trifles. The men totally ignored their wives' thoughts and roles, and, therefore, they missed the entire point of the real motive behind Mr. Wright's murder. The social gap between men and women in the early 1800s provided the basis for Glaspell's story, "A Jury Of her Peers" and her play, Trifles.
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...
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.
Did Mr. Wright kill the bird in a rage? Was it enough to push Mrs. Wright over the edge? In the play it mentions, how Mrs. Wright is now timid when she wasn’t like that before. The two women can see from odd things inside the house that can lead to speculate, Mr. Wright mistreated Mrs. Wright. The women never tell the men what they find as evidence and Mrs. Hale even hides the bird in her pocket to make sure it isn’t seen.
The women sticking together were shown by the way Mrs. Peters, and Mrs. Hale got defensive of the County Attorney saying “Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?” (Glaspell, 1413) Also, when the two women find the dead canary. Throughout the poem and even till the end neither of the women did the “lawful” thing and told the two men about the dead bird they instead stood loyal to Mrs. Wright, because they knew it would ultimately add more evidence to the case of Mrs. Wright.
In any writing the author must go through a specific thought process. This would be especially so if they were revising a previously written work and can be seen when comparing the two. The specific works that will be discussed here are the play, Trifles, and the story, “A Jury of Her Peers”, which were both written by Susan Glaspell and explores the suppression of women in a male dominated world and was based on a real-life murder trial of an Iowa woman that the author had reported. Trifles, a one-act play, was written in 1916. As the play opens, it is a frigid winter day and the characters are in the kitchen of the home, which is the crime scene and the main location of the play, of both the victim and the suspect.
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