Trifles by Susan Keating Glaspell
Mention the word feminist and most people think of the modern women's movement. Long before the bra burning of the 60’s, however, writers were writing about the lives and concerns of women living in a male dominated society. Susan Glaspell's play, Trifles, was written in 1916, long before the modern women's movement began. Her story reveals, through Glaspell's use of formal literary proprieties, the role that women are expected to play in society, and the harm that it brings not only the women, but the men as well. Character names are important in Trifles. Two characters who are never seen, John and Minnie Wright, provide the inciting incident for the play. The name "Wright" plays off the social stereotype of women seeking" Mr. Right," so they also represent the roles of men and women in the larger society. Minnie's name has a double significance, "Minnie" being "mini" or "minimized," which was descriptive of her relationship with John and in general of women's relationship with men. The taking of the husband's name is also important in the story. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are not given first names. The role that society has cast them in is one that is defined by their husbands. Mrs. Peters, who is married to the sheriff, is viewed in those terms, not as an individual. The county attorney even says "for that matter a sheriff's wife is married to the law" (Glaspell ..). Mrs. Peters herself tries to fulfill that role, saying "Mrs. Hale, the law is the law" (Glaspell ..). She tries to reinforce that identity until she is faced with the brutality of what John Wright did to Minnie. She says "I know what stillness is. The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale" (Glaspell ..). The difference is that she is talking about the crime committed against Minnie, not the murder. The best example of the importance of names, especially married names, is the image of Minnie Foster. "I hear she used to wear pretty clothes and be lively when she was Minnie Foster . . ." Mrs. Hale says (Glaspell..). She talks about Minnie again on page ..: "I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang" (Glaspell..). The image of Minnie Foster is used to show, by contrast, what John Wright ...
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...g when she replies to the county attorney's question about the quilt, saying "we call it —knot it, Mr. Henderson" (Glaspell ..). The title, Trifles, is itself a reflection of how men view women. A "trifle" is something that is small, of no consequence. Mr. Hale says that "women are used to worrying over trifles" (Glaspell ..). The irony of the story is that while the men are running around looking for "clues," the women have discovered the key to the mystery among what the men look at as only silly women's work. The feminist agenda of Trifles is not meant to be subtle. Glaspell uses the formal elements in the play to help convey the feminist theme. The title, the character names, and the metaphors all work together to paint not only a picture of Minnie's life with John, but by extension, the lives of all women who live oppressed under male domination. Trifles is not just a reflection, however. It is also a call for women to use their perceived powerlessness 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.
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
The farmhouse in Trifles was accessed by several individuals between the time of the murder and law enforcement arriving. The sheriff even sent Frank over that morning to start a fire for warmth, instructing him “not to touch anything except the stove – and you know Frank.” The men in the play are only interested in observing the areas where John would have been within the home, deeming the kitchen as unimportant. If they had only taken a few moments to consider the mindset and life of Mrs. Wright they would have discovered all the information they sought. Minnie’s obligation once married was to provide John with children, the fact they were childless helps to show her “failure” in this role in the men’s eyes, yet the women see the detached relationship she shared with John and the profound silence of a home without little ones. Mrs. Hale discovers an unfinished quilt with some very erratic stitching where Mrs. Wright has left off and begins to remove the stitches, as if trying to undo what has already happened. When the quilting method of Mrs. Wright is discovered the women link her method with the knot used around John’s neck. Without ever seeing
“The treatment of women in ‘Trifles’”, a web site that analyzes the demeanor of women throughout the play, states “ The women are betrayed as if they are second class citizens with nothing more important to think about, except to take care of the medial household chores like cooking, cleaning, and sewing.
“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.
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.
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).
The strong women characters in Trifles allow for feminist discussion, but also question the classic gender roles present at any point in time. Through the crime committed by Minnie Wright, three women grow together and establish that justice for all is deeper than finding the culprit. Justice occurs in all things, in hiding the clues by Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, in the quiet dignity they both have by helping their friend, and by proving that women are capable of anything they are determined to
Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, seems to describe the ultimate women’s suffrage story. No longer will men have an upper hand against women after reading this story. Cleverness will be the key to retaining power from the men in this story. The one thing that woman are criticized for, the idea that women tend to look at the ‘little picture’ instead of the ‘whole picture’, will be there path to victory. Two stories of revenge are told in this story, the revenge of suppression and revenge of being portrayed as ‘unsophisticated, unintelligent’ women. First we have the story of Mrs. Wright and the struggles with her husband, John. Married women throughout history have been portrayed and played the role as being inferior to the husband in marriage. This seems to be the case with Mrs. Wright. Even though John’s public image was somewhat respectable, it was obvious that behind close doors the story was different. There is evidence of abuse in this marriage. First, the discovery of the broken door leads me to conclude that John was very physical and anguished. Second, it is assumed that Mrs. Wrights husband had broke her canary’s neck. The canary, which of course had to be caged, was represented as the old Minnie Foster herself. The canary is a beautiful, free spirited bird that had a sweet voice, as Minnie had at one time. This was the end of the line and ‘Minnie Foster’ was about to be reborn. She would stand up for all those abused and suppressed house wives across the world and makes the first ‘final’ decision she had ever been allowed to make. The bird’s cage was her jail. The bird’s death was her freedom for the fate of the bird was the fate of her husband. John was discovered with a rope tied around his neck, the freedom of a women who could no longer be held down. This was the first implementation of women’s power in the story. The women at Mrs. Wright’s home played an important role in the story as well. The ‘professional’ detectives were busy about the house finding clues to indict Mrs. Wright in the murder case. They ridiculed the women in the house by ‘putting them in their place’ as typical ladies, so worried about small things and useless ordeals. Mrs. Hale noted the stitches in the quilt to be erratically stitched as if something were wrong.
The title of this drama "Trifles" demonstrates how men have the assumption that women and their respective actions are seemingly unimportant. Trifles can be used in two forms in the English language. In verb form, trifle means to treat someone or something as unimportant or non-essential. The word trifle in noun form means something of little value or importance. Both definitions of this word yield an idea in this story that women are seen as trivial and are not worthy of respect by men. This idea is conveyed throughout the entire story by the belittling assumptions and attitude the men use toward the women. For example Hale says, " Well, women are used to worrying over trifles" (1003). Typically, a kitchen represents women's work and the idea of domesticity. In Glaspell's eyes, men tend to assume that nothing of importance occurs in the kitchen and this can be related to the idea that women are insignificant. As Glaspell writes,
Glaspell uses dialogue to convey the gender-role stereotypes. At the beginning of Trifles, “Hale: Harry and I started to town with a load of potatoes. . . . but I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it before his wife, though I said to Harry that I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John- - (116). Clearly, we see that the patriarchal society is completely applicable to this play and we slowly unfold the mystery of the effects of the patriarchal society on Minnie Foster. All throughout the play, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters make it obvious what kind of husband Mr. Wright was. For example, “Mrs. Hale: But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him- - Like a raw wind that gets to the bone” (123). “I wonder how it would seem to never have any children around. No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird- - a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too (124) is also evidence that what Mr. Wright wanted, he got. I believe that after Mrs. Wright was isolated from society and suffered under the dominance of her husband for so long, she reached her breaking point. Therefore, being a victim of the patriarchal society. Yet, Glaspell takes it up another step I believe. Not only is Minnie Foster a victim, she uses Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters to also prove her feminist point. “Mrs. Peters: Oh, her fruit; it did
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.
In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles Mr. Wright’s murder is never solved because the two women in the story unite against of the arrogance of men to hide evidence that would prove Mrs. Wright as the murderer. The play Trifles is about the death of farmer Mr. Wright and how the town sheriff and attorney try to find evidence that his wife Mrs. Wright killed him. As the play progresses the men’s wives who had come along were discovering important pieces of evidence that prove the men’s theory but chose to hide from them to illustrate the point that their ideas should have been valued and not something to be trifled. The very irony of the play comes from its title trifles and is defined as something that isn’t very important or has no relevance to the situation that it is presented to. In this play the irony of the title comes from the fact that the men find the women’s opinions on the case trifling even though the women solve the crime which ends up being the downfall of the men as they would have been able to prosecute Mrs. Wright if they had listened which made the women’s opinions not trifling. Glaspell was born in an age where women were still considered the property of men and they had no real value in society in the eyes of men except for procreation and motherhood. This attitude towards women was what inspired Glaspell to write the play Trifles and to illustrate the point that women’s attitudes should be just as valued as men’s and to let women have a sense of fulfillment in life and break the shackles that were holding them only as obedient housewives. Trifles was also inspired by a real murder trial that Glaspell had been covering when she was a reporter in the year 1900. Glaspell is a major symbol of the feminist movement of l...
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.
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
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