Power In Trifles

One striking characteristic of the 20th century was the women's movement, which brought women to the forefront in a variety of societal arenas. As women won the right to vote, achieved reproductive freedom through birth control and legalized abortion, and gained access to education and employment, Western culture began to examine its long-held views about women. However, before the women’s movement of the 20th century, women’s roles were primarily of a domestic nature. Trifles by Susan Glaspell indicates that a man’s perspective is entirely different from a woman’s. The one-act play, Trifles, is a murder mystery which examines the lives of rural, middle-aged, married, women characters through gender relationships, power between the sexes, and

the nature of truth. The play, written in the early 1900s, long before the women’s movement and while men considered women their possessions. In the story of Trifles, it is easy to recognize the role of men and women portrayed in society during this time. The play illustrates the lines between the gender roles in the early twentieth century. The men seem to take over the woman's world, they dirty her towels, ridicule her for knitting and mock her for making preserves. Glaspell’s play delivers a message to women that they are as capable as men at completing any job, and the drama encourages women to take a stand against the supposed supremacy of their husbands. The position played by women in this era was always one of subservience to their male counterparts until later in the century. In Trifles, the author uses easily understood dialogue and other visual symbols surrounding the real-life murder of a farmer to develop the idea that a gap of misinterpretation exists between women and men. An actual event that occurred in the Midwestern United States around the turn of the century provides the foundation for the storyline in Trifles. The primary themes in this one-act play are gender differences and isolation. While Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale protest in a quiet way, they remain defiant against their husband’s opinions that they are only capable enough “…to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell 5). Therefore, Trifles explores many issues that are relevant to society today by questioning, supporting, and criticizing some of them, especially loyalty, gender roles, and deception.
From the play it is evident that the expectation for men is to be aggressive, self-centered and out right rough. Further, society expects all women to be cautious and homely. Whereas the sheriff and the county attorney seem very confident and formal, while the women characters appear nervous and fearful especially with the men present. As the drama begins, the men congregate at the stove to get warm while the women stay at the door where they refer to themselves as just spectators rather than principal actors. As they enter the house, it is clear that the women are there as observers, and the men lead while the women follow. This male dominance shows the men as leaders while the women just followed silently behind. The men came solely to investigate the death of Mr. Wright, and the women came for an entirely different reason and for the secondary purpose of picking up a few items for Mrs. Wright, who is currently in jail. In regards to the use of names in the play, the fact that the male characters never address the women by their first names at any time in the play expresses the male attitude that women have no individuality. The two women, known only as Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hales, after their husband’s last names. The men believe the only work that women know is housekeeping, washing clothes and knitting. In confirming this idea, Mr. Hale states, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell 5). At the same time, the men seem more concerned with acting like the boss and being in charge of the situation. The men continue to walk around the house searching for clues, while the subservient, quiet women wait patiently downstairs discovering significant clues. Just as Mulry explained, “While the men stumble obtusely around in the dark looking for clues, the women uncover the psychology of an event that seems at first beyond reason but teasingly reveals a domestic drama of passion, cruelty, and revenge” (293). The women have a solid understanding of life, and the men do not. The women characters know what feelings other people experience. Therefore, Mrs. Hale knows Mr. Wright’s behaviors while alive and understands why he used to behave the way he did. At the same time, the men do not have a clue, and their only goal is to fortify their superiority and convict Mrs. Wright of murder. As Mrs. Peters gathered personal items to carry to the jail, the sheriff said, “I suppose anything Mrs. Peters does’ll [sic] be all right” (Glaspell 6). The county attorney, replied, “Yes, but I would like to see what you take, Mrs. Peters, and keep an eye out for anything that might be of use to us” (Glaspell 6). There is no trust in Mrs. Peter’s decision making. The men think that their way of solving the crime is the only one that can bring results. The male characters are uninterested of what the women have to say about their clues. While the women understand about the emotional responses of the mysterious death that are relevant to the circumstantial evidence found, the men are only interested in finding hard, tangible evidence that could connect Mrs. Wright to her husband’s death. The gender differences are evident from the women’s conduct. The women are quiet, critical and can make good detectives while the men continue to search for hard evidence with no emotional attachments.
In the play, Trifles, author Susan Glaspell uses irony and symbolism to show the theme that most women face a power struggle.

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

they should risk the lives of others and allowing precedence to overcome loyalty. The play, Trifles, shows a different picture of women and indicates that women are not necessarily victims, rather, they are resilient capable of making personal decisions. Although, Glaspell presents the reader with the notion that deceptive behavior can be a useful means to help women gain power over men and promote female solidarity. The women deceptively hide the evidence they found. In her article, Mael describes this deception as, “For women, typically, moral problems arise from conflicting responsibilities rather than from competing rights” (283). In other words, women think in context rather than in the abstract. The women in the play look at the dead bird, and they see the death of Mrs. Wright’s happiness. By using a flashback episode in the play, Glaspell demonstrates the joy that Mrs. Wright had enjoyed before her marriage. The caged bird was just like Mrs. Wright, trapped in an abusive relationship. The reference to the bird is significant because the women understood how happy Mrs. Wright had been in her earlier life. The bird was the only thing bringing her happiness, and Mr. Wright took that away. He killed a part of her soul.
Although the play is short and only one-act, it incorporates different fundamentals to keep the audience glued. The author uses symbolism effectively as a critical support to draw a parallelism between simple animals like a bird and male dominated women. The use of imagery plays throughout the drama and helps make this one-act significant. The script uses simple techniques to create imagery for strong actions like murder. Likewise, the one-act produces different themes and uses the onstage characters to deliver qualities of the other characters without them appearing on the stage. The absence of actors connects the audience to everything that is happening in the play and also explores the characteristics of deception. For instance, the male dominated wives try to hide evidence from their husbands, they want to protect Mrs. Wright. To indicate this point, the author demonstrates how the women hide the dead canary from the men, fundamentally blocking the male characters from ever finding the real motive for the murder. An indication that the women appear scared to take control because their husbands have often reduced their worries to mere trifles. As stated by Dawn Baire in an online article, “Had the men not degraded the women and their trifles, they may have found the evidence they sought” (Baire & Krentzman). Perhaps the women would have turned over their evidence if the men had treated them with more respect. The male characters present themselves as serious-minded detectives, but the reality is men are not as perceptive women in the play. When Mr. Peters assesses the scene in the kitchen, he decides there is “Nothing here but kitchen things” (Glaspell 5). Thereby, minimizing the worth and importance of women in a society that believes a woman’s place is in the kitchen. In another incidence as the drama ends and Mr. Peters, the sheriff, asks the county attorney if he wants to check the items Mrs. Peters plans to take to the jail, revealing a lack of trust in the woman’s judgement. To this, the county attorney replies that Mrs. Peters does not need supervising and says, “…For that matter, a sheriff’s wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, Mrs. Peters?” (Glaspell 14). Then Mrs. Peters replies to the attorney, “Not-just that way” (Glaspell 14). This type of dialogue attempts to push women into a lower position in life.
The play, Trifles, visually shows the audience and readers the relationships created between the male and female characters.

The jar of preserves, the broken birdcage, and the re-stitched quilt pieces lead to the connection leading Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters to the joint decision about guilt and innocence. Susan Glaspell illustrates how women can share experiences and become empowered. Most women value their lives as women and see themselves as man’s equal. The female characters pay attention to the more insignificant clues and quickly uncover Mrs. Wright’s motive for the murder. Supposedly based on a true murder story, Susan Glaspell's Trifles does more than just rework a tale of murder; it reveals the features of the society that produced the crime. The one-act play Trifles utilizes characters, dialogue, symbolism, language, and themes to present real-life problems that have faced nations for many years. The drama illustrates the issues of equality, male domination and the empowerment of women. The themes of gender differences and isolation shown through the ways the roles of men and women are viewed and by the male dominance over women. In contrast, it is the women who give legitimacy to the evidence, as they empathize with Mrs. Wright who, in their final assessment, may have flipped out as a result of ongoing domestic violence. Through the course of the play, the men fumble around in the dark, unaware of the incriminating evidence that surrounds them. The author blends

the themes of the play and helps the audience understand the plot and message by incorporating the actors on stage with those never seen. There is no doubt that Trifles explores many issues that are still relevant in society today. The male characters symbolize the failures of men: the murder of Mr. Wright because of his lack of consideration for his wife, and the men who seek to convict Mrs. Wright fail to uncover evidence discovered by the female characters. Through the years of struggles, women have achieved a certain amount of equality with men.