Symbolism in Trifles Semiotic can be defined as relating to signs or symbols. Symbols are a part of everyday life. People have objects that remind them of someone or something. Many people associate the symbol with the sign; for example, the symbol, a tractor, will be associated with the sign, the farmer. In other words, a person sees a tractor and automatically thinks of a farmer. Behind every symbol is a reasoning of why someone associates that object with that meaning. In “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell there are specific symbols and settings that relate to the play and give the play its major elements. One element that helps relate to the play is the setting of the play. “Trifles” is a very dark and gloomy setting which helps to give the idea of the tone of the play. Once analyzed well, the main three symbols …show more content…
of the play, which are the bird cage, the bird, and the rope, will help a reader better understand the role that each objects has in the play. The first of the three main symbols in “Trifles”, is the bird cage. There are two specific reasons of why the birdcage is significant. The first reason symbolizes that just like a bird is trapped in a bird cage, Mrs. Wright was trapped in her marriage. Mrs. Wright was not considered a very productive member of society. After her marriage to Mr. Wright, she became an isolated person. “Wright was close. I think maybe that’s why she kept so much to herself” (Glaspell 257). After this quote by Mrs. Hale, she even goes on to say that Mrs. Wright did not belong to the “Ladies Aid—a woman organization at the time” (Bangga 1). Even the lock on the bird cage door symbolizes how Mr. Wright kept her locked up from society. Later on in the play, when Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find the bird cage Mrs. Peters notices that the door to the bird cage has been broken. “Why, look at this door. It’s broke. One hinge is pulled apart” (Glaspell 259). Mrs. Hale goes on to reply that it looked like someone had been rough with it. One thing the broken door symbolizes is a broken marriage between Mr. and Mrs. Wright. With Mr. Wright out taking care of the farm and animals, and being gone all day, Mrs. Wright would have been just left all by herself. “Through the women’s identification with her, we understand Minnie’s desperate loneliness” (“Trifles” 12). In a relationship, communication is key and it seems as though Mr. and Mrs. Wright did not have very much communication. “Not having children makes less work—but it makes a quiet house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come in” (Glaspell 259). Another point the broken door symbolizes is when the door is opened, Mrs. Wright becomes free. As long as the bird cage is locked and the door is shut, Mrs. Wright is just like the bird being trapped inside. The second of the three main symbols is the bird. The bird itself symbolizes Mrs. Wright. “She—come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself—real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and – fluttery” (Glaspell 260). At this point in the play, Mrs. Hale is reminiscing on how Mrs. Wright was before she got married to Mr. Wright. Mrs. Hale remembers Mrs. Wright as Minnie Foster, the young, carefree, and cheerful girl. As Mrs. Hale is telling Mrs. Peters of Mr. Wright, the audience gets an idea of who Mr. Wright really was. “He didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess and paid his debts. But he was a hard man” (Glaspell 260). This quote from the play gives an idea that even if Minnie Foster was a carefree and cheerful girl, when she became Minnie Wright everything took a turn for the worse. Another point of why the bird is symbolized as Mrs. Wright is because of its singing. When Minnie Foster was that young carefree girl, she belonged to the choir. “She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir” (Glaspell 257). Mrs. Hale eventually gets the idea that if Mr. Wright did not like the singing of the bird, then he was the one who would have killed it. Mrs. Hale also says that maybe Mr. Wright killed Minnie’s singing as well. “No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird—a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too” (Glaspell 261). Mrs. Peters argues that they do not know who really killed the bird, but Mrs. Hale knows exactly who killed Mrs. Wright’s beautiful little bird. The third and last of the three main symbols in the play, is the rope.
In this particular play the rope symbolizes death and destruction. Death is one of the main points symbolizing the rope because there is death throughout the play. The death of the bird is the starting point. When Mr. Wright kills the bird, it kills Mrs. Wright on the inside. It is like she has just lost her best friend. Considering all the isolation she had, the bird probably was her best friend. “She like the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty box” (Glaspell 261). This quote shows how much Mrs. Wright cared for the bird. If she did not care about it, she probably would have just tossed it away outside or in the trash. However, she cared for it so much that she was going to use her beautiful sewing box to bury the bird in. The next significant death is the one of Mr. Wright. When Mr. Wright died, Mrs. Wright gained her freedom back. Having to be kept from society, and never having any children or company other than Mr. Wright meant that Mrs. Wright had lost her freedom. Now thirty years later married to Mr. Wright, she knew she could only gain her freedom back if he were
dead. Destruction is another point in the symbolization of the rope. In the beginning of the play Mr. Hale is telling the county attorney that he found Mr. Wright with a rope around his neck, strangled to death. “He died of a rope round his neck” (Glaspell 254). Just like Mr. Wright died of strangulation, Mrs. Wright’s bird also was killed because somebody had strangled it. “Somebody—wrung—its—neck” (Glaspell 260). When Mr. Wright choked the bird to death, it also squeezed the life out of Mrs. Wright. The bird was her only source of hope and happiness and Mr. Wright took that away from her, thus adding destruction to her life. She knew the only way to a life of hope and happiness was if Mr. Wright was gone. “When I was a girl—my kitten—there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes – and before I could get there—if they hadn’t held me back I would have – hurt him” (Glaspell 261). Here Mrs. Peters is saying that she can justify with Mrs. Wright for being so mad when Mr. Wright killed her bird. The bird cage, the bird, and the rope are just three main symbols in the play “Trifles” that help a reader to better understand the play entirely. The bird cage symbolizes being trapped in her marriage and having a broken relationship. The bird itself symbolizes a young Minnie Foster and how she use to be lovely and carefree. The rope symbolizes death of Mr. Wright and the bird and destruction of the marriage. This entire play is also a symbol of how women need freedom and equality in their society. Symbols are used in everyday life. It is up to a person to decipher the meaning that is used behind that symbol.
In the story, "Trifles", a man named John Wright was supposedly murdered. The characters made some inferences that could possibly lead to Mrs. Wright murdering her husband. The facts stated that Mr. Wright was found to be hung by a rope tied around his neck. My inferences state that at the beginning of the story, Mrs. Wright too relaxed at the idea of her husband being dead. Mrs. Wright was laughing and was rocking back in her chair, turning herself away from Mr. Hale. If someone's husband was dead unexpectedly, a loving wife would more than likely be upset about it and would like to be involved with the investigation. Another inference of mine is that she wasn't active in the rest of the story to try to even help anyone try to discover who
In the book All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, symbolism is shown in multiple different ways. Symbolism is the usage of symbols to represent ideas and qualities. When reading the book, in the beginning these symbols do not tend to stand out, but as the plot continues symbols are found everywhere. Multiple symbols are used throughout the story like horses, blood and water. Some more less-noticeable symbols are dust, religion, and sunsets.
Wright’s decision to kill her husband. This is why the story ends with Mrs. Hale saying that she’d decided to “knot” it instead of “quilt” it. Quilting it would have been symbolic of Mrs. Wright’s passiveness and continuing to live as though things were okay. Knotting it is both symbolic of Mrs. Wright standing up to her husband, and of the manner (rope, strangling) in which he was killed. This is suggested after Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters discover the dead bird, who had been strangled at the hands of Mr. Wright. This ties back to the questions Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters had when they observed the “messy” part of the quilt, and the “interrupted” kitchen, because it is now suggested that Mrs. Wright left things in this order in a fit of anger when she found he’d killed her
Minnie Foster was once described as the belle of the ball. To look at her tonight for the first time you could see why. She carried herself with both an air of confidence and modesty at the same time. Her small eyes dominated her face. They did not look directly at you anymore though. Still, they seemed all knowing and experienced as if they were able to see and know secrets about you that you wish no one knew. Her slender peaked nose was no match for the full lips she had, lips that never uttered a sound and which have become as pale as her knuckles. Her lips were pierced shut protecting the thoughts in her head from falling out one by one to the hard flooring.
Symbolism is using a character or object to represent an idea. Hawthorne displayed much of it in his novel, The Scarlet Letter. He displays it in his characters and objects in the novel. He even symbolizes the book by calling it, “A tale of human frailty and sorrow.” Other displays of symbolism in The Scarlet Letter, are like, the rosebush, the scaffold, and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Symbolism can sometimes be hard to understand, or difficult to figure out what a character or object is symbolizing.
Susan Gable’s Trifles is focused on discovering the killer of a local farmer in the twentieth century. In this play the amount of irony is abundant and the irony always relates to solving the murder. The two types of irony that are most easily discerned in Trifles are verbal and situational irony. Irony is when an author uses words or a situation to convey the opposite of what they truly mean. Verbal irony is when a character says one thing but they mean the other. This can be seen in the way the men dismiss the women. Situational irony is when the setting is the opposite of what one would think it would be for what the play is. This is seen through the setting being in a kitchen and various other aspects of the
The bird indirectly represents Enda’s failure to seek liberation and defy against the restrictions society sets upon her. The fall of the bird is reflective of Enda’s spiritual awakening as it represents society’s fatal misjudgment as she desires to rebel against society and participates an infatuation with her lover Robert. As the bird falls into the water, is like Enda as Enda rejects Victorian motherhood, only seeing destruction as an
Symbols are often employed in order to highlight the theme of a play. Playwright Lorraine Hansberry uses several symbols in her 1959 play, A Raisin in the Sun. Though there are several symbols used throughout the play, Hansberry uses three main symbols to convey her messages. The three main symbols seen in A Raisin in the Sun are the breakfast eggs, the new house and garden, and Mama's plant.
What is considered evil? Is a person truly ever evil? If so, what leads into walking down this path? Could it possibly be a life-alternating event or influence from another outside force? Anti-transcendentalists believed in this presence of evil in humanity and that it was predominant in the lives of individuals. Anti-transcendentalists were the opposite of transcendentalists in terms of their overall views on life. Transcendentalists believed in the good or in other words, positive outlooks in life. Dark Romantics as anti-transcendentalists were sometimes referred to as being extremely popular during the mid-1800’s. This saw the rise of many prominent anti-transcendentalist’s writers, not just in America but abroad. Dark Romantics used symbolism in their literary works to show the prevalence of evil in society contrary to transcendentalist’s beliefs.
Setting a makes up a good portion of determining a theme in a piece of literature. Physical location and time are the key points of the setting. Helping to progress the plot along with the details of the setting and the morals and attitudes of the characters throughout the piece. There are many hidden ideas demonstrated throughout this work of literature from the setting. Trifles effectively displays many underlying points from locations and using many different props from the play. While conveying the thoughts and emotions of the writer, the setting can also provide more information about the conflict of the work. The details of the setting of Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles provide clues for solving the murder of John Hossack, and give vivid details about what women were going through during this time period of suffrage.
The quilt serves as a crucial piece in the mystery and also as an appropriate metaphor for the women's discovery of the motive and guilty party. the quilt, reveals a very important piece of evidence. Most of the quilt discussed is very neat and perfect but all of a sudden there is a piece that is "all over the place" proving that Mrs. Wright was not her usual careful self, which proves the point that she was in distress while she was quilting at that place in time. The act of knotting a quilt is linked to the act of killing a man with a rope around his neck. (Holstein,
The Stranger, by Albert Camus, depicts a man who is going through life with an existential viewpoint on things that he does. The protagonist, Meursault, insists on going through life as if nothing in his life matters at all, and the point of his existence continues to escape him on many different levels. Through the death of his mother; the relationship with Maria, and the killing of an Arab; Meursault still finds that the meaning of his life escapes him. While many people believe that Camus uses symbolism with the weather and various other devices, I believe he uses a different approach. In The Stranger, Camus shows through symbolism that the true meaning of life is found when facing one’s own death.
The author, William Golding, shows many forms of symbolism in the novel, Lord of the Flies. Symbolism means use of symbols to represent an idea from its actual meaning. In this novel, Golding uses symbolism from the beginning to the end of the novel. During the novel, these symbols continue to change and give a new meaning. Three significant symbols from the novel include the conch, the fire, and the beast. Each symbol changes throughout the novel and revolves around the evil that is inside people. There is always a beast within when the darkness comes out.
The rope symbolizes death and destruction. When Mr. Wright was killed, he was chocked to death with a rope. The same way Mrs. Wright was killed, so was Mrs. Wright's bird. The death of Mr. Wright was Mrs. Wright's way of starting a new life. The bird's death symbolizes Mrs. Wright's dying because she is with Mr.
Birds can mean so many things such as death. The play Macbeth written by Shakespeare is a tragedy. Macbeth is the Thane of Glamis in the beginning of the drama until three witches appear. The witches, also known as the Weird Sisters, call him three different names: Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and King hereafter. The Great Chain of Being is a major role because Elizabethan England saw nature reflect in society. Macbeth and his wife ruin the Great Chain by killing the top of the chain. Later, after the King’s death, the Great Chain is displayed in the natural world; a hawk being killed by an owl. Throughout the play, birds are compared to characters and their actions.