Literary Review: "Trifles"

959 Words2 Pages

Protection must be guarded, justice must be served and relationships must be scared. In “Trifles”, Susan Glaspell approaches all three. By utilizing the conflict of law and justice, she explores the social struggle between man and woman as well as the separation between public and private affairs. Each aspect is developed completely in the work and help evaluate the discrepancies throughout the story. Forced to deal with a dramatic murder, a group of individuals face a complicated situation.

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.

“Trifles” examines the contrast between men and women. Mr. Hale commented that “women are used to worrying over triffles”, implying that men do not concern themselves with such things (433). It also seems to state that women do not think of much else. By the end, however, it is clear that the significance di...

... middle of paper ...

...id it” especially when she asks “for an apron and her little shawl” (436). It isn’t until they discover the dead bird that their suspicion grows almost unlimited. The tone drastically changes from the mysterious beginning of wondering what occurred to a suspicion. This then ends with the panic and need to protect the woman. The last scene ends with a false closure as the Mrs. Hale concludes with “We call it—knot it”, leaving the reader to wonder as to what would happen next (443).

“Trifles”, by Susan Glaspell, focuses on three points; relationship between men and women, the privacy of a home life and the justice that law must find. By using the play structure, powerful diction, meaningful symbolism and a tense tone, she successfully serves her purpose. The classic plot line of progression only further allows the reader to be enthralled by the focus of the story.

Show More
Related

  • Pathos In Trifles

    740 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Essay on Sacrifices in Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    1148 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... women. So that men won’t follow the path of Mr. Wright and women wont fall into a trap like Mrs. Wright did. Bourn agrees by adding: “Trifles is not just a reflection, however. It is also a call for women to use their perceived powerless as a tool to manipulate the system, and a warning to men that a system where one segment of the population dominates and oppresses another cannot and will not be tolerated forever”(Bourn 2).

    Read More

  • Trifling Justice

    1534 Words  | 4 Pages

    Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, was written in 1916, reflects the author’s concern with stereotypical concepts of gender and sex roles of that time period. As the title of the play implies, the concerns of women are often considered to be nothing more than unimportant issues that have little or no value to the true work of society, which is being performed by men. The men who are in charge of investigating the crime are unable to solve the mystery through their supposed superior knowledge. Instead, two women are able decipher evidence that the men overlook because all of the clues are entrenched in household items that are familiar mainly to women during this era. Glaspell expertly uses gender characterization, setting, a great deal of symbolism and both dramatic and verbal irony, to expose social divisions created by strict gender roles, specifically, that women were limited to the household and that their contributions went disregarded and underappreciated.

    Read More

  • Susan Glaspell's Trifles - Some Observations

    896 Words  | 2 Pages

    Trifles I would like to make three major points. Major #1: Since this is the first play we’ve read, the stage direction really caught my eye and I tended to consider it very seriously in determining the meaning of the work. The most obvious direction, which the essay by Parrish discusses, is that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Wright ever appear in the play, and Glaspell was the first to use this type of direction (which was later recognized as uniquely her own.) Other important examples of the play’s direction (not spoken lines) are: (. she is disturbed now and looks fearfully about as she enters).

    Read More

  • Trifles, a Play by Susan Glaspell

    624 Words  | 2 Pages

    Holstein (Suzy Clarkson Holstein 2003) argues that the two corresponding accounts of Trifles are reposed on “the differences in [men’s and women’s perceptions and behaviors as they are] grounded in the home space” (p. 282). Furthermore, Holstein (Suzy Clarkson Holstein 2003) showed that men in the play approach the Wright house, where Mr. Wright has been found dead, as a crime scene, while the women who escort them through the investigation approach the house as a home. Holstein (Suzy Clarkson Holstein 2003) has determined that the women and the men have two very dissimilar motives for being there—the men, to perform their duties as law professionals, the women, to arrange several belongings to take to the imprisoned Mrs. Wright. Yet she contends that in Susan Glaspell's Trifles the fact that the mutability of their motives is firm, on the part of the men, a...

    Read More

  • Power In Trifles

    2135 Words  | 5 Pages

    The power of women is different than that of men. Women display a subtle and indirect kind of power, but can be resilient enough to impact the outside world. In Trifles, Susan Glaspell delivers the idea that gender and authority are chauvinistic issues that confirm male characters as the power holders, while the female characters are less significant and often weak. This insignificance and weakness indicated in the play by the fact that the women had the evidence to solve a murder, but the men just ignored the women as if they had no value to the case at all. This weakness and inability of the female to contest the man’s view are apparent. According to Ben-Zvi, “Women who kill evoke fear because they challenge societal constructs of femininity-passivity, restraint, and nurture; thus the rush to isolate and label the female offender, to cauterize the act” (141). This play presents women against men, Ms. Wright against her husband, the two women against their spouses and the other men. The male characters are logical, arrogant, and stupid while the women are sympathetic, loyal, and drawn to empathize with Mrs. Wright and forgive her crime. The play questions the extent to which one should maintain loyalty to others. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale try to withhold incriminating evidence against Mrs. Wright, and by challenging the reader to question whether

    Read More

  • The Theme of Justice in Susan Glaspell's 'Trifles'

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Gender Differences in Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Response to Trifles by Susan Glaspell

    651 Words  | 2 Pages

    The action begins when the men leave the women in the kitchen alone. This where Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find out themselves find out who had kill Mr. Wright. For some unknown reason the women were acting like they were profession detectives, they were asking question and making conclusion. They were discussing the way the kitchen was left are the murder. For example, when Mrs. Peters was looking through the cupboard, she finds out that Mrs. Wright had bread set. Mrs. Hale concludes that Mrs. Wright was going to put the loaf of bread beside the breadbox. Another example is when Mrs. Peter notices that Mrs. Wright had been making a quit. They were asking question if Mrs. Wright making quilt or making a knot, like a professional detective. The men come back in the kitchen and overhear th...

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis Of Setting In Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    1284 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Justice In Susan Glaspell's Trifles

    972 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Jury Of Her Peers And Trifles Comparison

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    First, “Trifles” is a play script in which a crime is introduced without out right context towards the situation. It is written in third person objective, corresponding with the fact that visual details are revealed only with dialogue.

    Read More

  • Conflict In Trifles By Susan Glaspell

    688 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Trifles Title Analysis

    1511 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Trifles

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

More about Literary Review: "Trifles"

Open Document