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Trifles is a play that was written by Susan Glaspell in 1916, but is still very popular today. The play has been made over and over again with different actors and scenes. Susan Glaspell grew up in Iowa and received a degree from Drake University then later started working for the Des Moines News as a reporter. Trifles was one of Glaspell’s best known plays, which was inspired by a real life murder she reported and wrote about. The play Trifles is a work that portrays the true backstory of women in the late 19th century and early 20th century who were subjugated, abused, and restricted from the outside world. Due to this mistreatment, a massive speculation arises in which the play implicitly shows the mistreatment as the motive for the women to commit these such murders. Susan Glaspell was a reporter in the early 1900’s, and one case she was appointed to, was the murder of John …show more content…
The men made their way upstairs to look, since that is where the murder took place. The two women Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters also started looking around. While they were in the kitchen, Mrs. Hale noticed a dead bird in a sewing box. Mrs. Hale tells Mrs. Peters, “look at it! Its neck! Look at its neck!” (Glaspell, 782). The bird had been strangled, just like Mr. Wright. The two women instantly know how and why this has happened. Mrs. Wright only had her bird that gave her joy inside that lonely house, and now it’s dead and someone 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. Was the bird a motive for murder at the Wright
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 ...
Born in 1867, Susan Glaspell was raised in rural Davenport, Iowa during a time where young ladies were expected to marry and raise a family. Glaspell never conformed to this expectation; instead graduating from Duke University, becoming a reporter for Des Moines Daily News, and becoming a successful author and playwright. During her years as a reporter, she covered the story of Margaret Hossock, a farm wife in Iowa accused of murdering her husband. This would later serve as her inspiration for Trifles. Glaspell was a woman who bucked societal expectations but was not blind to the plight other women faced. (Ozieblo) Trifles shows how silencing a person’s soul can be just as dangerous as taking the song out of a caged canary; stealing
The story “A Brutal Murder in a Public Place” by Joyce Carol Oates follows a person in an airport who hears a small bird but cannot seem to find it. Oates uses imagery and symbolism between the narrator and the bird to show how trapped and overlooked the narrator truly feels.
Denotatively a bird is defined as a, Any of a class (Aves) of warm-blooded vertebrates distinguished by having the body more or less completely covered with feathers and the forelimbs modified as wings, often capable of flying. The authors/Glaspell’s strategic comparison of Mrs. Wright to a bird can be interpreted connotatively that she was a free,
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
Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." Plays by Susan Glaspell. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., 1920. Reprinted in Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia Eds. New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 1995.
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...
Wright. The bird had been Mrs. Wright’s last resort of happiness; it represents who she used to be. This bird was very precious to Mrs. Wright, that becomes obvious when the author says this,“ Mrs. Peters drew nearer—then turned away. “There’s something wrapped up in this piece of silk,” Silk was not an easy thing to come by. Considering that the women come to believe Mr. Wright strangled Minnie’s bird, they make the inference that he did not treat her properly and she would not have been able to get expensive things like silk often. If Minnie wrapped her bird in silk, then it obviously means a lot to her. The women finally understand what happened to Minnie’s bird when they take a closer look at it, “But, Mrs. Peters!” cried Mrs. Hale. “Look at it! Its neck—look at its neck! It’s all—other side to. ”She held the box away from her. The sheriff’s wife again bent closer. “Somebody wrung its neck,” said she, in a voice that was slow and deep.” The women know that Minnie liked this bird a lot and there was no way she would have killed the bird. They come to realize that it was not her that killed the bird, it was Mr. Wright, and the bird was not the only thing that he would have been rough with. “When I was a girl,” said Mrs. Peters, under her breath “my kitten—there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes—before I could get there—” She covered her face an instant. “If they had not held me back
I think the canary symbolized Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Hale describes her; "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"; and like a bird, Mrs. Wright even sang in a choir. But after she got married, every thing stopped. She didn't sing anymore or attend social functions. Like a bird, her house became her cage. The only happiness that she appears to have is with this bird. The bird probably sang when she could not. He was probably a companion to her, she had no children. And like her, he was also caged. Because we do not know, we can only guess that her husband killed her bird. If he killed the bird then he would have killed the only thing that was important to her. He killed her once when he married her and caged her in that house, and he killed her again when he destroyed her bird. "No,. Wright wouldn't like the bird - a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too." When Mrs. Wright was used to its singing and her world became quiet again, it was too much for her take.
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.
Trifles is one play that really shows the conflict between gender roles in the early 20th century. At the beginning of the 1900s the idea of everyone having equal rights didn’t exist. Men clearly dominated every aspect of life, while women were often left with little importance. The oppression of women during that time stretched to the point that they were not truly acknowledge as their own person. Their sole purpose was to take care of their families by keeping house and performing their caretaker duties. According to the essay “Literary Context in Plays: Susan Glaspell” by Bailey McDaniel claims that Glaspell’s work Trifles is considered an observation on the demeaning, insignificant characterization of women’s labor and their lives within domesticity (McDaniel). Susan Glaspell really tries to emphasize this feminist view throughout the entire play.
Susan Glaspell, from Davenport, Iowa is only the second woman to win a Pulitzer Prize [1]. Much of her writing is strongly feminist, mostly dealing with how society viewed women and the prevalence of male dominance. Possibly, the idea behind the play “Trifles” was based on a woman named Margaret Hosack from Iowa, who is thought to have killed her husband due to his abusive behavior. Susan Glaspell was influenced by this story when writing ‘Trifles’ because she worked at the Des Moines Newspaper at the time of the event and in
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 equally important to finding the truth.
However, John has a hatred of the bird - is it jealousy or an effort to minimize his wife’s happiness? Either way, he despises the canary - and, by extension, Mrs. Wright. Of course, Mrs. Wright isn’t pleased with the fact that her husband can’t stand her best friend. And since she follows the rule of sisters before misters, his murder of the bird is, understandably, the final
One woman’s Trifles is another man’s clues. The play Trifles, was written by Susan Glaspell based on the murder of John Hossack, which Susan reported on while working as a news journalist for Des Moines Daily News. Susan Glaspell was an American Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, actress, novelist, journalist, and founder of the Provincetown Players. She has written nine novels, fifteen plays, over fifty short stories, and one biography. At 21 she enrolled at Drake University even after the prevailing belief that college make women unfit for marriage. But many don’t know that her work was only published after the death of her husband George Cram Cook. Trifles is an example of a feminist drama. The play shows how male dominance was