trifles susan glaspell essay

Susan Glaspell

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The play opens on the scene of an abandoned farmhouse. The house is in disarray, with various activities interrupted, such as dishes left unwashed and bread prepared but not yet baked. Five people arrive at the house to investigate the scene of a crime, including the county attorney, George Henderson, the local sheriff, Henry Peters , and the neighbor, Lewis Hale , who discovered a murdered man, John Wright , strangled with a rope in his bed. The men are accompanied by two of their wives, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale . Mr. Hale describes for the country attorney the experience of finding John Wright’s dead body the previous day. He stopped by his neighbors’ house to ask if they’d want to install a party line telephone. He encountered Minnie Wright sitting in her rocking chair , and she calmly announced that her husband was dead. Mr. Hale went upstairs to find the body, and left everything in place for the inspection of the attorney and the sheriff. Minnie claimed that she didn’t wake up when her husband was strangled in their bed.

Mrs. Wright (Minnie) has been arrested for the crime and is being held until her trial. The men do not look closely around the kitchen for evidence of a motive, but discover Minnie’s frozen and broken canning jars of fruits . Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale know that Minnie was worried her canning jars would explode in the cold weather, and the sheriff jokes that a woman would worry about such things while held for murder. The men criticize Minnie’s poor housekeeping, as evidenced by the mess in the kitchen and a dirty towel .

The men go upstairs to inspect the bedroom and Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale collect items from the kitchen that Minnie requested be brought to her at the jail, including clothes and an apron. The women comment on the strangeness of strangling a man to death when the men had pointed out that there was a gun in the house. The women admire a quilt that Minnie was working on, and are wondering if she was going to finish it by “quilting” or "knotting” when the men reenter and, overhearing the women talking, joke about the women’s trivial concerns at a time like this. Once again left alone by the men, the women notice that some of the stitching of the quilt is very poor, as if Minnie were nervous or upset.

The women then find a birdcage without any bird in it. Mrs. Hale expresses strong regrets having not come to visit Minnie more often, acknowledging that John Wright was a hard man and that it must have been very difficult for Minnie to be alone at her house. She recalls Minnie before she married and how cheerfully she sang in the choir. The women then uncover a beautiful red box, and in it, the dead bird that was missing from the birdcage, its neck broken.

When the men return, Mrs. Hale hides the box with the body of the bird. Once the men leave again, Mrs. Peters remembers a boy who killed her childhood pet kitten, and her certainty that she would have hurt him in return if she could have. And yet, Mrs. Peters says, “the law has got to punish crime.” Mrs. Hale berates herself for what she sees as her own crime of not visiting her neighbor Minnie, crying out, “who’s going to punish that crime?”

The men return, and the sheriff asks if the county attorney wants to take a look at the items Mrs. Peters is bringing to Minnie at the jail. He says that Mrs. Peters doesn’t need supervising and assumes the things she’s taking aren’t harmful. The women hide the box with the body of the bird. The county attorney jokes that at least they discovered the fate of Minnie’s quilt project, and Mrs. Hale reminds him that she was planning to finish the quilt by knotting it.

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Major Themes of the Play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell Essay

The play, written in the early 20 th century when the society was still male-dominated. They were the decision-makers in the family and in the political platform since women were still not allowed to vote and be represented in the political arena. Mrs. Wright is the symbol of the suffering the women went through as her duties were generally limited to the kitchen.

She tended to the farm and reared the family chicken with little support from her husband. In solving the murder mystery of Mr. Wright, two women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, establish the true motive of the killing by looking at the clues they found in the house, which showed that Mrs. Wright was going through a tough time in the hands of her husband. Sheriff Peters and Attorney George Henderson assigned to the case, but they are the symbol of male dominance over women. They turn a blind eye to the revelations made by the women.

Thesis statement: Mr. Wright’s actions in Trifels are a true revelation of how cultural beliefs and identity influence a person’s behavior and show the wife’s condition in moments of love and hate.

Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale when in the kitchen gathering leads, they notice a little box, inside the box is a dead caged bird covered with a piece of cloth. The canary sang to Mrs. Wright, and it was the symbol of the wife’s desire for freedom and joy, which she longed for as she lived with the husband. Mr. Wright strangled the bird with a string.

The husband is the provider to the family; the items found in the kitchen by the two women during investigations were a stack revelation of the oppression Mrs. Wright faced in the house. They found stale fruit preserves and bread that had dried out of the box, the kitchen was also messy with no sign of recent cooking. This showed the inhuman treatment that Mrs. Wright went through despite the hard work that she did in the house. According to Glaspell, The attorney and the sheriff went ahead to blame Mrs. Wright for the mess that was in the kitchen.

SHERIFF. Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves.

COUNTY ATTORNEY. I guess before we’re through she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about.

HALE. Well, women are used to worrying over trifles (1, 28-30).

The culture at the time depicted the men as important people in society, and their views were the grounds for establishing facts about the murder. The two women accepted this identity and decided to act on their own, they took the dead caged bird as evidence without informing the principal investigators to understand Mrs. Wright’s motive on the murder.

Mr. Wright crushed the happiness in her wife’s life; he made sure that she had no regular friends who visited over to see and empathize with the state that she was in. He restricted her moves outside the home so she could run away from the tribulations that she faced. Before Mrs. Wright married her husband, she had joy in her youth, and she loved to compose and hum tunes of her favorite songs. All these ended as she moved to her husband’s house.

Women have come a long way to the place they now command in the society in the present time. They had to help themselves get out of bondage by engaging in ‘silent’ activism to liberate the oppressed women in their families. The rise in advocacy and improvement in education have made them more aware of their strengths and have taken up political positions to defend their interests. However, the end is not achieved yet, with many still suffering silently in their family enclaves.

Works Cited

Glaspell, Susan. Trifels. Boston: Walter H. Baker, 2010. Print.

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"Major Themes of the Play "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell." IvyPanda , 19 May 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/major-themes-of-the-play-trifles-by-susan-glaspell/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Major Themes of the Play "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell'. 19 May.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Major Themes of the Play "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell." May 19, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/major-themes-of-the-play-trifles-by-susan-glaspell/.

1. IvyPanda . "Major Themes of the Play "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell." May 19, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/major-themes-of-the-play-trifles-by-susan-glaspell/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Major Themes of the Play "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell." May 19, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/major-themes-of-the-play-trifles-by-susan-glaspell/.

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Entertainism

Susan Glaspell’s Trifles: Summary, Symbolism, and Analysis

'Trifles' is one act play, the storyline of which revolves around a murder. This play successfully provides a perspective about the plight of contemporary women, and gives the scope of their status in society. A look at Trifles' summary and analysis.

‘Trifles’ is one act play, the storyline of which revolves around a murder. This play successfully provides a perspective about the plight of contemporary women, and gives the scope of their status in society. A look at Trifles’ summary and analysis.

Did You Know?

In 1936, Susan Glaspell was the director of the Midwest Play Bureau for Federal Theatre Project in Chicago.

Susan Glaspell (1876 – 1948) graduated from high school in 1894. After her graduation, she had started working as a journalist for a local newspaper. After a three-year stint at the newspaper house, she took admission in Drake University as a Philosophy Major student. After graduating from university, she started working full-time for Des Moines Daily .

During her career with the daily, she had reported about the murder of John Hossack. Her one act play ‘Trifles’   is inspired from this incident. She wrote the play close to a decade after the murder had first come to light. John Hossack’s wife, who had claimed that the murderer had slain her husband with an ax, was the main accused in the murder case. She was later convicted. However, her conviction was overturned after an appeal.

An overview of Susan Glaspell’s one-act play through Trifles’ summary and analysis.

George Henderson George is a county attorney. He is called in to investigate the murder of John Wright. He is young and a professional, but is also a male chauvinist. The role was originally played by Michael Hulgan.

Henry Peters Mr. Peters is a local sheriff. He is a middle-aged man who is at the house of the deceased to examine the crime scene. Robert Conville had originally essayed this role.

Mrs. Peters She is the wife of the sheriff. Mrs. Peters is new in town, and has no acquaintance with Mrs. Wright. She is sympathetic to the emotional plight of Mrs. Wright. This role was originally played by Alice Hall.

Lewis Hale Lewis is a farmer. He is the neighbor of the Wrights. He enters the Wrights’ house to use a telephone, where he finds Mr. Wright strangled, and his wife acting weirdly. George Cram Cook had originally played this role.

Mrs. Hale She is wife of farmer Lewis. She knows Mrs. Wright from before she had become Mrs. Wright. She dislikes the chauvinism shown by men around her. Susan Glaspell had originally played this role.

John Wright He is the victim of the murderous assault. The story revolves around the motive of his murder. He is a farmer who has neglected his wife’s happiness time and again.

Mrs. Wright She is Minnie Foster before her marriage to John Wright. Minnie is a happy girl. Post-marriage, Mrs. Wright is a sad woman. She is the prime suspect of the murder investigation.

TRIFLES’ SUMMARY

The play is about the murder investigation of John Wright, who is found dead, strangled by a rope, in the kitchen of his farmhouse. His wife, Mrs. Wright, is found acting strangely by Lewis Hale, their neighbor, when he enters their house hoping to use their telephone. Mrs. Wright informs him that her husband died while she was sleeping. Lewis Hale alerts the local sheriff, Henry Peters.

The play starts with Lewis Hale and Henry Peters entering the kitchen of the Wrights’ farmhouse, the crime scene. They are accompanied by George Henderson, the county attorney. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters stand by the kitchen door. Hale starts to explain to the sheriff and attorney the events that had transpired since he had entered the farmhouse earlier in the evening.

When Mr. Henderson starts looking around the kitchen, he finds a jar containing fruit preserve in the cupboard to be broken because of the cold, and the resulting mess. When Mrs. Peters tells the attorney that Mrs. Wright is worried about it, he says, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles”.

Henderson’s bickering about women helps Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale bond with one another. On a couple of occasions, Mrs. Hale is also shown defending Mrs. Wright. She also indicates that Mr. Wright was a rather unwelcoming personality.

Mrs. Peters wants to pick up a few things for Mrs. Wright, on her request. Henderson, before going upstairs with the other men, agrees to it only if he is allowed to check all the retrieved items. Mrs. Hale starts rearranging the kitchen to its tidy condition before the men had entered it. She becomes retrospective and speculates that Mrs. Wright was unhappy and sad, unlike Minnie Foster who loved to sing. From the odd behavior of the wife since her husband’s murder, she thinks that Mrs. Wright must be the killer. This prompts both the ladies to start their own investigation.

The men, who are also investigating the case, and oblivious to what the ladies are up to, pass a few snide sexist comments along with some patronization. The women find the sewing on a quilt to be wrong, and want to fix it. They start looking for a string. Instead, they find an empty birdcage. The hinge on its door is broken. Both of them start wondering what must have happened to the bird within.

When looking through the sewing basket, they find a dead bird canary inside. They notice the head of the bird is in the same condition as that of Mr. Wright. The women decide to hide the box before either the sheriff or attorney come back.

Canary Bird The canary bird, a singsong bird, represents the free spirit of Mrs. Wright from the days she was Minnie Foster. While its death signifies the diminished spirit of Mrs. Wright.

Broken Jars The jars are broken due to the cold weather. It signifies the how life of Mrs. Wright is broken apart after being subject to a life with a person having cold heart.

‘Knot It’ The play ends with Mrs. Hale saying,”We call it… Knot it, Mr. Henderson”. The men, through their final dialogs, indicate that they know who the real killer is and it also refers to the knot around Mr. Wright’s neck that was fatal. While according to the women it signifies their bonding and solidarity through the scenario.

The play was written during the times of the ‘Suffragette Movement’ . It relates to the status of women in contemporary society. It speaks of the male mentality, and how they were considered the dominant gender in society. The play tries to break the then stereotypical considerations about female gender. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, each having the backing of the other, have sympathy for Mrs. Wright, which shows that they share a strong bond.

The women also stand through the male domination and try and maintain the power equilibrium between the genders. The plot may start off with its focus on the male characters, but this changes as the story proceeds. Mrs. Wright, the main accused, becomes the central figure of the play. There is portrayal of the havoc wreaked by a cold relation in domestic life.

The title of the play is focused on the mentality of men considering women matters to be ‘Trifle’.  The characters around whom the main plot revolves, Mr. and Mrs. Wright, do not have a screen presence. Their story is presented through the characters that make an appearance on stage.

Susan Glaspell has won many awards, including the ‘Pulitzer Prize’ . She is also remembered for discovering Nobel laureate Eugene O’Neill . In all, she has written fifteen plays.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Trifles — Analysis of Gender Roles in “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell

Analysis of Gender Roles in "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell

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Published: Mar 6, 2024

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