Kyzhee Thompson
English 102
Professor
Spring Semester 2015
A Trifling Paper
The place of gender roles in our society continues to evolve and change. As society as a whole progressively becomes more tolerant to the idea that role conformity often has negative effects, if continues over extended periods of time. To prove this one needs only look to history, it was only in recent years have women have managed to break through the ascribed roles placed upon them at birth. Women have and are attempting to be seen on the same level as their male counterparts, in many respects much of human history has been documented from a patriarchal perspective, not surprising considering that for centuries men have held higher placed in society than women.
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In Trifles, Glaspell stages the play in Mrs. Wright’s home a day after her husband is murdered. The play takes place after the crime in question has been committed, which doesn't give the audience a clear picture of the events in question. The majority of the play is centered on a conversation between Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, two women who come from the same rural town as the Wright family. The main action of the play revolves around determining whether or not Mrs. Wright really did indeed kill her husband. Glaspell does not give the reader many details regarding the crime, yet there is little doubt that Mrs. Wright didn't kill her husband, but Glaspell paints such a compelling picture that as readers we are compelled to discover why. Trifles is a play about a woman who murders her emotionally and probably physically abusive husband. It is also a tale of two other women, who take justice into their own hands by withholding evidence from their husbands to save an obviously distressed …show more content…
Wright, its neck wrung. A conclusion is formed by the women about how the bird came to die, deciding that the act was committed by Mr. Wright in a fit of anger, the tiny bird was sewn away by Mrs. Wright. Similar to the way Mrs. Wright’s formally free spirit and happy nature, as remarked upon by Mrs. Hale, was cast aside so that she could focus on fulfilling the duties expected of her as a woman. Quite possibly at one point Mrs. Wright may have had a genuine desire to fulfill her duties as a mother, a wife and homemaker, had it not been for the cold and bleak nature of her husband Mr. Wright. Mrs. Hale goes as far as to admit this, if in not so many word, to the County Attorney, Mr. Henderson, when she said “place’d be any cheerfuller for John Wright’s being in it”. Later on Mrs. Hale bring up another woman known as Minnie Foster, the woman Mrs. Wright used to be and how it was that same man she married that wore away every bit of the carefree woman she had been thirty years before. How she was no longer the woman with the beautiful voice who sang in the choir, and definitely not the happy women once seen around town. The last piece of solace that existed in her world was the little canary that would sing to her. Something she had bought a year before the events of Trifles occurred, in an attempt to make her otherwise dreary
The character Mrs. Wright is portrayed as a kind and gentle woman. She is also described as her opinion not being of importance in the marriage. It is stated by Mr. Hale that “ I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John” .(745) Her neighbor, Mrs. Hale, depicts her as “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”. (752) It appears that Mrs. Wright is a kind and gentle woman, not capable of committing a murder. But, with the evidence provided and the description of Mr. Wright’s personality it can also be said that the audience will play on the sympathy card for Mrs. Wright. She appears to be caught in a domestic violence crime in which she is guilty of, but the audience will overlook the crime due to the nature of the circumstances. By using pathos it will create a feeling that Mrs. Wright was the one who was suffering in the marriage, and that she only did what she felt necessary at the
Hale and Mrs. Peters reflect on their past experiences with Mrs. Wright, saying she wasn’t a very cheerful person. Mrs. Wright’s house was very gloomy and lonely. The ladies believed her unhappiness with her marriage was due to not having any children to fill her home. Also, the bird symbolized joy in Minnie’s world. The ladies believed that the bird lightened up not only her home, but her spirits. “Mrs. Hale says, I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up in the choir and sang. [A look around the room.] Oh, I wish I'd come over here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to punish that?” (976.) Mrs. Hale feels guilty for not visiting Minnie as much as she should have, and wondering if it would have changed things. Mrs. Hale knew women are better joining forces, than being left to fend for
At the start of the play, all of the characters enter the abandoned farmhouse of John Wright, who was recently hanged by an unknown killer. The Sheriff and County Attorney start scanning the house for clues as to who killed Mr. Wright, but make a major error when they search the kitchen poorly, claiming that there is nothing there ?but kitchen things.? This illustrates the men?s incorrect belief that a kitchen is a place of trivial matters, a place where nothing of any importance may be found. Mrs. Peters then notices that Mrs. Wright?s fruit froze in the cold weather, and the men mock her and reveal their stereotype of females by saying ?women are used to worrying over trifles.? The men then venture to the upstairs of the house to look for clues, while the women remain downstairs in the kitchen where they discuss the frozen fruit and the Wrights. Mrs. Hale explains that Mrs. Wright, whose maiden name was Minnie Foster, used to be a lively woman who sang in the choir. She suggests that the reason Mrs. Wright stopped being cheerful and active because of her irritable husband.
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...
Hale’s case. She feels responsible for her neighbor’s decline into isolation. Her conflict is within herself and the choices she made, or rather didn’t make. Mrs. Hale laments, “I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here. I— (looking around the room)—wish I had. . . I could've come. I stayed away because it weren't cheerful—and that's why I ought to have come. . . it's a lonesome place and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now— (shakes her head)” (). We can hear the shame and regret in her words. While she herself did not commit the crime, she feels equally culpable, seeing as she did absolutely nothing to keep Minnie Foster, the singing, cheerful woman, from deteriorating into the broken spirited Mrs. John Wright that killed her creator. She feels that Mrs. Wright was justified in her actions, which Mrs. Hale highlights as she regales, “She used to sing. He killed that, too” (). She is not culpable for killing her husband, because everything about herself had been killed by him, like the bird. Mrs. Hale resolves to hide the bird, exonerating Mrs. Wright of her offense. She does this in part because, in some way, it absolves her of her negligence and makes up for all the years of neglected friendship. Like Mrs. Peters, she too takes a moment to decide what she wants to do, only grabbing the bird at the last possible second before it could be
Susan Glaspell’s most memorable one-act play, Trifles (1916) was based on murder trial case that happened in the 1900’s. Glaspell worked as a reporter, where she appointed a report of a murder case. It was about a farmer, John Hossack who was killed while he was asleep in bed one night. His wife claimed that she was asleep next to him when the attack occurred. No one believed in her statement, she was arrested and was charged on first degree murder.
Susan Glaspell highlights the settings as theatrical metaphors for male dominated society in the early 20th century. “Trifles” begins with an investigation into the murder of Mr. Wright. The crime scene is taken at his farmhouse where clues are found that reveals Minnie Wright to be a suspect of murder. In the beginning of the play, it clearly embodies the problems of subordination of women. For example, there are two main characters in this play—Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, who are brought along with the sheriff and attorney to find evidence for Mr. Wright’s murder. The men gather and work together at the stove and they talk with each other in familiarity while women “stand close together near the door behind men” (Glaspell 444). Perhaps the location of the women standing behind the men near the door reflects also their secondary or inferior social standing in the eyes of the men. Moreover, it seems that the wo...
Susan Glaspell's play, "Trifles", attempts to define one of the main behavioral differences between man and woman. For most of the story, the two genders are not only geographically separated, but also separated in thought processes and motive, so that the reader might readily make comparisons between the two genders. Glaspell not only verbally acknowledges this behavioral difference in the play, but also demonstrates it through the characters' actions and the turns of the plot. The timid and overlooked women who appear in the beginning of the play eventually become the delicate detectives who, discounted by the men, discover all of the clues that display a female to be the disillusioned murderer of her (not so dearly) departed husband. Meanwhile, the men in the play not only arrogantly overlook the "trifling" clues that the women find that point to the murderer, but also underestimate the murderer herself. "These were trifles to the men but in reality they told the story and only the women could see that (Erin Williams)". The women seem to be the insightful unsung heroes while the men remain outwardly in charge, but sadly ignorant.
The play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is type of murder mystery that takes place in the early 1900’s. The play begins when the sheriff Mr. Peters and county attorney Mr. Henderson come to attempt to piece together what had happen on the day that Mr. Wright was murder. While investigating the seen of the murder, they are accompanied by the Mr. Hale, Mrs. Hale and Mr. Peters. Mr. Hale had told that Mrs. Wright was acting strange when he found her in the kitchen. After taking information from Mr. Hale, the men leave the women in the kitchen and go upstairs at seen of the murder. The men don’t realize the plot of the murder took place in the kitchen.
Trifles is based on a murder in 1916 that Susan Glaspell covered while she was a journalist with the Des Moines Daily News after she graduated from college. At the end of the nineteenth century, the world of literature saw a large increase of female writers. Judith Fetterley believed that there was an extremely diverse and intriguing body of prose literature used during the nineteenth century by American women. The main idea of this type of literature was women and their lives. The reason all of the literature written by women at this time seems so depressing is due to the fact that they had a tendency to incorporate ideas from their own lives into their works. Glaspell's Trifles lives up to this form of literature, especially since it is based on an actual murder she covered. This play is another look at the murder trial through a woman's point of view.
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.
The news of a murder brings in Mr. Henderson, the county attorney, and Mr. Peters, the sheriff. Mr. Hale, a neighboring farmer, reveals what he witnessed. Mrs. Wright, the deceased’s wife, was rocking nervously in her chair and mentioned her dead husband lying upstairs. Mr. Hale then called in the sheriff who called in the county attorney. As they begin looking for evidence, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale relocate into the kitchen to gather things to bring to Mrs. Wright to jail. The women start talking about the unhappy life Mrs. Wright seemed to have lived and the unpleasantness that was ushered into the air. Upon finding a broken cage, they grow curious but assume nothing. When they look into a sewing box for more things for Mrs. Wright, they find the dead bird that was strangled. Fearing the worst, the bird was then hidden by the women as the men returned and decide that Mrs. Wright would rather knot than quilt the quilt she was making.
Susan Glaspell’s Trifles (1916), is a play that accounts for imprisonment and loneliness of women in a patriarchal society. The plot has several instances where women issues are perceived to be mere trifles by their male counterparts. The title is of significant importance in supporting the main theme of the story and developing the plot that leads to the evidence of the mysterious murder. Trifles can be defined as things of less importance; in this story dramatic, verbal and situational irony is used to show how the insignificant trifles lead to a great deal of truth in a crime scene investigation. The title of the story “Trifles” is used ironically to shape the unexpected evidence discovered by women in
The author, Susan Glaspell, was on staff at the Des Moines Daily News when the murdered occurred. The play is said to draw upon a detective story. However, the drama was not only written for mystery but was also written to show how women were treated around her time. In the play, Trifles, author Susan Glaspell uses foreshadowing, irony, and symbolism to convey the theme that women face a power struggle when their legal obligations conflict with their protectionist and empathetic feelings for a fellow woman.
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