Trifles all Around
In Susan Glaspell play Trifles there is a murder investigation going on. The sheriff and the attorney feel that there is no important evidence in the kitchen where Mrs. Wright spends most of her time. Obviously, the man does not pay any attention to the women's world. The men constantly look over all the trifles that point to the motive of the murder and the evidence of a depressing life Mrs Wright has. Mrs.Hale and Mrs.Peters stays in the kitchen having a conversation. They begin to discover necessary confirmations of Mrs.Wright's guiltiness of murdering her husband, but they come to a conclusion that Mrs.Wright is not accountable for the murder.
The bird symbolizes Minnie Foster; Mrs.Wright and Minnie Foster are the same person in
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Mrs. Wright is working on a quilt; the stitching of the quilt shows that she knows how to sew, but she begins to sew very sloppy. Mrs.Hale implies, "Mrs. Peters, look at this one. Here, this is the one she was working on, and look at the sewing! All the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at this! It’s all over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn’t know what she was about"(Glaspell 1391). It is unknown of what is disturbing Mrs. Wright; Mrs.Peters explains, "I don’t know. I don’t know as she was nervous. I sometimes sew awful queer when I’m just tired"(Glaspell 1392). Mr. Wright killing the canarie could cause Mrs. Wright sewing flaws. Mrs. Peters is making an excuse for the messy stitching on Mrs. Wright's quilt.
Little things of little value or importance are called trifles. The trifles that are discovered in Trifles by Susan Glaspell are very much important towards evidence of Mr.Wright's murder and the terrible life Mrs.Wright lives. Every discovery is made by the women. The men are blind to the evidence because they do not care about a women's lifestyle. Therefore, the women make a decision to blame Mr.Wright for his own
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).
In their discussion of supposedly unimportant items, such as the ill-stitched quilt, broken bird cage door, and dead canary, the women are able to collect important evidence and know enough information about Mrs. Wright to give her a motive for murdering her husband. The men, though, are clueless as to who killed Mr. Wright and why, even after they thoroughly search the house for clues. They believe that they possess superior intelligence and knowledge of the world in comparison to women, but cannot find enough evidence to convict Mrs. Wright. Even if the men did uncover the same clues as the women, it is highly unlikely that they would understand how that would make for a motive for Mrs. Wright, as they simply cannot relate to her as a female. Glaspell's Trifles shows how women reveal basic truths about life by paying close attention to detail, and shows the true importance of the things which men generally find to be trivial.
Mr. Hale found his neighbor, John Wright, strangled upstairs in the Wrights’ house with Minnie Wright, John’s wife, sitting calmly downstairs. With John Wright dead and his wife in jail, Mr. Hale, the sheriff, their wives, and the county attorney all crowded into the Wright’s house to try to find clues about the murder. While the men go upstairs, they leave the women downstairs “.worrying over trifles.” (“A Jury of Her Peers” 264) Unbeknownst to the men, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find clue after clue that would convict Minnie Wright of the murder. Instead of telling the men about the clues, the women hide the clues and the men have no idea what the women have found.
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.
Trifles is an one act American 19th century drama play written by Susan Glaspell (1876-1948),a feminist who has taken many different titles and awards underneath her belt. She is known for writing short stories and plays, as well as her involvement in acting throughout her time. According to Bradford the play Trifles came about during Glaspell’s younger career when she was a journalist. She investigated a crime scene in a small town of Iowa where some events that occurred in her play were from the observations and information that she discovered. That is how the play Trifles came about. In her play Trifles the story begins with the sheriff, Mr. Hale, Mr. Peters and their wives entering a crime scene where John Wright was found dead in bed with a rope peculiarly wrap around his neck. The setting of the play takes place in the kitchen where the wives Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters discuss the possible event that could have occurred at the crime scene while gathering things for Mrs. Wright ;whereas, the men was upstairs investigating trying to find the motive to why Mrs. Wright would murder her husband. Throughout their time of being stuck at a crime scene and getting teased and demeaned by their husbands for messing around with trifles, the women unknowingly were doing a little of investigating on their own. They end up discovering significant evidence to the crime scene despite the fact that messing with the little things that the men denoted to be trifle. While the women were looking for scissors they found a dead canary in Mrs. Wright’s sewing box with the same knot that was tied around Mr. Wright neck. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters eventually uni...
Mrs. Wright is being accused of murdering her husband, and all the evidence points to her, but if you look in her past the motive is clear. Mrs. Wright was pushed to far and she decided to take matters into her own hands. In the early 1900's women were looked upon as inferior beings, and men were the dominating sex. This is very evident of the women in "Trifles", not just Mrs. Wright but the lawmen's wives. They seem to look over the women's intelligence and fail to notice the evidence the women have found. This plays a big role in Mrs. Wright life also, her husband doesn't care for her or what she likes or believes in. When the attorney and the sheriff enter they make reference to her bad housekeeping skills as if it was expected she keeps a good house. Women back then were supposed to keep house while the men did all the hard work in the fields and around the house. It becomes more and more obvious throughout the story that Mrs. Wright did not want this type of life, and that she wasn't very happy. She was very anti-social because she was so depressed; Mrs. Hale makes the remark, "I think maybe that'...
"Trifles" is a play with a unified plot. Although there are verbal flashbacks to the events of the day of the murder of John Wright, the play's entire plot begins and ends in a span of one day. The author also extends the unified plot to create a single setting (the farmhouse kitchen). The plot centers on John Wright's murder. Mrs. Wright is the main suspect; an investigation is taking place as to the motive or reason for the crime.
In Susan Glaspell’s short Trifles, Mrs. Wright is being accused of murdering her former husband Mr. Wright. While their house is being investigated, there are a lot of clues that suggest what could’ve happened between Mr. and Mrs. Wright. Susan Glaspell uses many literal techniques throughout the story to give readers a depiction of what’s going on. Glaspell uses irony, symbolism, and themes to distinguish Mrs. Wright’s role in the murder and her character in the story.
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.
The women’s silence about their knowledge at the end of “Trifles” is a sign of defiance of male authority because it describes the suffrage that women had and probably still goes through. They don’t want to seem like they had to give them the evidence because if they did that mean they were obeying the male. Because of the nightmares Mrs. Wright has been going through so they stood up for her and they have hidden the evidence. I feel as though two stories of revenge were told in this play, one was the revenge of suppression and being portrayed as ‘unworldly, mindless’ women. In the beginning of the story, it describe the struggle that she be going through with her husband. Even the other women realize her emotional life. They propose that her
In Susan Glaspell’s play “Trifles,” five members of a small town come together to investigate the murder of a neighboring farmer, John Wright. While George Henderson, the county attorney, Henry Peters, the town sheriff, and Lewis Hale, John Wright’s neighbor who discovered the murder, investigate the farmhouse for evidence, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters gather clothing and other belongings for their neighbor and murder suspect, Mrs. Wright. However, while the women are inside the house, they discover incriminating evidence against Mrs. Wright. Instead of providing this evidence to their husbands and Mr. Henderson, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters cover up the evidence due to the guilt they feel for not being there for Mrs. Wright. Because the women interfere
The setting of a story is the physical and social context in which the action of a story occurs.(Meyer 1635) The setting can also set the mood of the story, which will help readers to get a better idea pf what is happening. The major elements of the setting are the time, place, and social environment that frame the characters. (Meyer 1635) "Trifles by Susan Glaspell portrays a gloomy, dark, and lonely setting. Glaspell uses symbolic objects to help the audience get a better understanding for the characters. The three symbolizes used are a birdcage, a bird, and rope.
1. A trifle is something of little value. The title, "Trifles," refers to the seemingly small, unimportant details that women focus on both in solving the murder case, and in regular life. These small, domestic details focused on by Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, and overlooked by the men in the story, are the evidence that the men are searching for. Because the men see these trifles as insignificant, and only for women, they never get the evidence they wanted. The women did not only look at the obvious aspects of the murder, like the men. Because the women were more intuitive and sensitive to Minnie Wright's life (or lack of), they were able to solve the murder with the trifles, which were actually extremely valuable. The men and women were exposed to the same clues, however the men were too blinded by the "role of a man" and disregard for the important role of a woman to realize the significance of the clues (trifles). The first clue was fruit preserves that were broken because of the cold. These preserves symbolized Minnie; surrounded by the coldness of her husband, she shattered. Th...
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
Entrenched in irony, the title holds immense significance. It is based on the arrogant, condescending line by Hale, “ well, women are used to worrying about trifles” (1.132). All the things women are reduced to doing—cleaning, cooking, quilting—are deemed insignificant trivialities. Moreover, the men pay little attention to the activities of women, which is a quintessential asset in the play. While the men go off to look in the bedroom where the murder happened, the women stay in the kitchen and other “useless” areas, and end up solving the crime. They look in the kitchen and in bag of quilt pieces and uncover the dark secret that enveloped the Wright home. Putting together clues, they decipher Mr. and Mrs. Wright’s deleterious marriage and the cruelty that possessed Mr. Wright. By worrying about so-called trifles, they ended up solving the crime that the egotistical men could not.