Kenny Brown 5/28/16
Humanities H9 Short Paper 4
Trifles
Throughout “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell, the setting, stage set, societal norms, and symbolism within the play all contribute to our understanding of the wife’s central conflict. With the guilt of killing her husband, Mrs. Wright develops an internal conflict within herself. This conflict is exacerbated throughout the play due to these factors.
With respect to the setting, the entire play takes place in the home of Mrs. Wright. With this being said, there are constant reminders all over her house of her abusive husband. As the men interview her and search her home, they often criticize her housewife skills. As they do this, I believe it triggers Mrs. White’s emotions and reminds her of her abusive husband. With all of these reminders, Mrs. Wright is practically biting her tongue in the play, as she did with her husband.
Along with this idea, women are stripped
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of identity in the play. Since the women aren’t given first names and are referred to by the husbands last name, they are often talked down to throughout the play. When Mr. Hale talks about how women are worried about trifles, he practically downplays women’s problems and deems them seemingly less important. Because of this, the women in the play banded together in attempt to stand up to the male dominated society they lived in. With this allegiance, the importance of gender alliance rather than the typical husband and wife alliance signifies a giant leap for the feminist movement. Along these lines, the alliance turns a simple internal conflict into a physical gender vs. gender conflict as the play progresses. Although illegal, this conflict comes into play in its most heightened position when the women withhold evidence from the men to protect Mrs. Wright to promote the advancement of women and their independence from their husbands. Throughout the story, the significance of symbols help the reader fully understand Mrs.
Wright’s conflict. With this being said the bird and the preserves are important symbols that represents Mrs. Wright and her marriage. The bird, although caged, similar to how women were “caged” in society was beautiful and vibrant, as Mrs. Wright was before her marriage. As the bird slowly withered and eventually died, the representation of the Wrights’ marriage is shown. In a close reading, once can determine that the bird represents the personality and individuality of Mrs. Wright slowly fading and ultimately disappearing due to the abusiveness of her husband. In response to this, killing her husband proved to be the only way to salvage what was left of her life. The preserves in the play also prove to be important as well. The term preserve, of course means to keep something fresh. For their marriage up to this point the Wrights remained preserved, or functional. As the seal broke on the preserves, it also did on their
marriage. In a play setting such as this one, it is easier to see conflicts embedded within the plot. By grouping characters on certain sides of the stage, for example, an entrance from stage left is usually reserved for stronger-willed characters since an entrance from there catches the audience’s eyes quicker since we read from left to right. In addition, blocking is used to also show power or weakness on the stage. While watching this play rather than just reading it, one can see clearer the extent of the male-dominated society that this play is centered around. As seen in this play, with the constant entering and exiting of characters, it is even easier to see the two sides and their true personalities as they speak in front of their gender equals. With this being said, the stage directions, along with symbols, setting, and the societal norms of the time prove to be extremely important in the presentation and the development of Mrs. Wright’s central conflict throughout the play. As the audience uses these tools as a way of interpreting the play, it allows for deeper insight and an understanding for the role of females and their lack of feministic advancement during the time of this play.
I. Article Summary: Suzy Clarkson Holstein's article, “Silent Justice in a Different Key: Glaspell's 'Trifles'” evaluates the play Trifles and how the difference between the men in the play mirror how a woman's perspective is very different from a man's. Trifles is about two women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, who show up at a house with their husbands and the county attorney to investigate a murder. The entire time the men are looking for evidence to implicate the accused wife, Minnie Wright, of killing her husband. Meanwhile, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are there to gather up some items to bring Minnie Wright in jail. While doing so, the women uncover evidence that would prove the wife is culpable but decide to hide it from the men in the last moments of the play. Trifles is evaluated on how the women are able to come up with the evidence unlike the men because they didn't approach it like a crime scene but rather a home, “By contrast, the women arrive at a home. Although neither they or the men realize it, they too are conducting an investigation” (Holstein 283). Holstein also notes they are able to find evidence because they use their own life experiences to relate to the accused murderer, Minnie Wright as shown here; “But the women do not simply remember and sympathize with Minnie. They identify with her, quite literally” (285). Holstein finishes the article by noting the women decide to hide the evidence because of the solidarity they feel towards Minnie Wright; “From Mrs. Hale's perspective, people are linked together through fragile, sometimes imperceptible strands. The tiny trifles of life –a neighbor's visit, a bird's song, the sewing of a quilt –have profound reverberations” (287).
Trifles” is a play written in 1916 by Susan Glaspell. The play’s audience consists of young adults to those in their late 50’s. Mrs. Glaspell takes a serious matter of domestic violence and uses her platform as an author to raise awareness about the issue. In the play “Trifles” a neighbor went to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Wright only to find Mr. Wright dead in his bed. He had been strangled to death by a rope. The neighbor questioned Mrs. Wright about the matter and her response was odd and suspicious. Mrs. Wright was taken to jail while the home is being investigated for further evidence. Mrs. Glaspell’s play “Trifles” effectively achieves the goal in raising awareness on domestic violence by the evidence of the crime and through pathos.
In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, a small number of people are at the Wright house trying to figure out why and how Mr. Wright was murdered. Mrs. Wright is already the suspect, and all that is needed for the case is evidence for a motive. The jury needs something to show anger or sudden feeling so that they can convict her for murder. The men, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Peters, and Mr. Hale are there to find the evidence. The women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, are there to pick up a select few items for Mrs. Wright. While the men are going about business and looking for evidence to build a case against Mrs. Wright, the women are looking over what Mrs. Wright left behind and intuitively trying to understand what happened. They are also trying to fathom why Mrs. Wright would be compelled to perform such an act of violence. As the story goes on, it constructs each of the characters in slightly different means. Susan Glaspell presents Mr. Wright and Mrs. Hale as having contrasting and comparable characteristics. While Mrs. Hale and Mr. Wright differ in terms of emotions, they are similar in their cleanliness and are well respected by others.
In Trifles, the play takes place at an abandon house at a farm where John Wright and his wife, Minnie Wright lived. John was killed with a rope around his neck while his wife was asleep. The neighbor, county attorney and sheriff came to the crime scene for investigation. Along with them came their wives, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters; they were told to grab some belongings for Mrs. Wright that she may need while she’s in custody. Once they all entered the home the men dismissed the kitchen finding it as unimportant. The three men focused more on legal regulations of the law. The play was mostly revolved around the women, discovering the motive through “trifles” and other symbolic things that had significance to Minnie’s guilt. When Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters understood the reason behind the murdering they hid the evidence from their husbands, and kept quiet. Many readers would visualize this play as a feminist point of view due to women’s bonding in discovering Minnie’s oppressive life after marriage. However Glaspell, provokes two ethical paradigms that have different perspectives of justice. Glaspell uses symbolism to characterize women’s method in a subjective way, by empowering themselves through silence, memories of her and their own lives as well as having empathy about her sit...
In this play, the men and women characters are separated even from their first entrance onto the stage. To the intuitive reader (or playgoer), the gender differences are immediately apparent when the men walk confidently into the room and over to the heater while the women timidly creep only through the door and stand huddled together. This separation between genders becomes more apparent when the characters proceed in investigating the murder. The men focus on means while the women focus on motive: action vs. emotion. While the men...
The play portrays women as inferior to men and stuck with household work while men have absolute control over them. The opening scene description “The kitchen is the now abandoned farmhouse of John Wright, a gloomy kitchen, and left without having been put in order […] other signs of in completed work.” (Trifles, 1) gives a first impression to the reader of how isolated the place is, thereby symbolizing the loneliness of Minnie Wright and her duty towards the household. Such a carefully crafted description in the very first sentence of the text tends to set off a really strong image and perception in the mind of the reader even before they are introduced to the plot. This is a really clever tactic by Susan Glaspell which she uses to emphasize her message from the
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.
In the play Trifles, Susan Glaspell brings together three women through a crime investigation in the late nineteenth century. Glaspell uses symbolism, contrast of sexes, and well-constructed characters to show that justice for all is equally important to finding the truth. Perhaps the most prevalent literary device in the Trifles is the rich symbolism. Each of the women in the play are equally important, but come together to become more powerful. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters directly bond, while Mrs. Wright indirectly contributes from jail by leaving them small clues.
In the play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell, the play approaches the psychoanalytic perspective. As the play approaches many different angles from many characters, it is discussed from two women the behavior she accumulated. The inner mind of an individual develops unconscious thoughts which in result proceeds to the psychoanalytic perspective. The woman in this story is affected by it because of the environment that cages her in turmoil.
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.
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
The title “Trifles” to the drama has played a significant role to the composition of the story. If it hadn’t been the title “Trifles,” readers wouldn’t be able to connect to the suspense of the story easily. On the other hand, the true meaning of trifle being the less important thing is denied holding a greater value in this story. All that time, trifles were providing a signal as an evidence to solve the mystery behind the murder of Mr. Wright. In addition, the biggest trifle that draws readers’ attention is that how men take women’s every activities as of no value. Men keep criticizing on what women are doing or having a conversation about. Trifles as a title has been able to justify the whole story of the drama as it gives the readers the sense of how men treats women as unworthy.
At the time of when this play was written the women weren’t considered equal to the man. So a lot of men felt superior over the women causing them to be belittled. We can tell this from the setting of the play the men gather up near the fire to keep warm and the women are in the back shadowing the men. Also when they begin to talk about women and how they worry about little trifles. Showing that they feel that there is no importance in a women everyday task. So instead of them taking out time to search the whole they only search the parts of the house that was more male dominate which cause the detectives to do a partial investigation. The men are so blinded by their cold emotionless investigation prejudiced believing that nothing important can be found in areas in the house where the wife spent most of her time. Stated in the play in this line “I guess we’ll go upstairs first- and then out to the barn and around there. You’re convinced that there was nothing important here-nothing that would point to any motive? Nothing here but kitchen things.” (446) When the down stairs area where Mrs. Wright spent most of her time was where the answers to all their unanswered question was. Their mind is clouded to the point that they disregard the main important clues as just a women’s trifles. “well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worrying about her preserves.” (446). The men are so stuck on men being more dominant and the women being
Trifles is a play that is an investigation of the murder of John Wright. The sheriff and the county attorney arrive with at John Wright's farmhouse to look for evidence. Mr. Hale tells the story of how he discovered Mr. Wright strangled with a rope and how Mrs. Wright was acting strangely. He describes the murder as a gruesome act to kill a man by strangling the victim since it was a gun in a house. The men investigate for evidence for a motive to convict Mrs. Wright, the wife of John Wright. The men try to find something to show anger or a sudden feeling. The men pass judgment on Mrs. Wright due to her dirty kitchen. Women were not seen as a dangerous creature during this time. So putting away a woman must take hard course evidence to convince