Representation Of Women In Trifles By Susan Glaspell

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A bird, even in despair with her wings clipped, sings to keep her spirits aloft. That is the story of Minnie Foster, the subject of the play Trifles by Susan Glaspell. Minnie suffers due to having a husband who totally disregards her opinion and thoughts, and is interested only in himself. This is demonstrated when he kills Minnie’s canary, which leads her to kill her husband in a gruesome way. She commits this crimes because the murder of her canary is representative of the slow death of her soul caused by an abusive, dull, and hard man. Glaspell wrote this play to show how women were often overlooked and restricted by the male community near the turn of the century, and she brilliantly alludes to this by representing Minnie and other oppressed …show more content…

The obvious representation is directly shown in the quote: “She—come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself—real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery” (Glaspell 750). This quote by itself is completely superficial, but it is written to allow the reader to find the other, subtle comparisons between Minnie and the songbird. For example, the canary was found dead with a noose tied around its neck, simply because Mr. Wright disapproved of its singing. The noose could be interpreted as Wright stymying Minnie’s happiness and personality, while she herself is represented by the bird. “She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir” (Glaspell 747). Minnie used to be in the choir and sing beautifully, much like the canary. This annoyed her husband however, so he took it away from both of them. While Minnie does not die, unlike the songbird, inside she feels dead as she has to live according to the rules and ideas of another man, rather than being independent. When Minnie finds the canary dead in the cage, (which restricts the bird’s freedom, just as Wright restricts Minnie’s) she realizes how much her life had been restricted by Wright by seeing herself in the bird. Therefore, she kills him in the same fashion that he murdered the bird not just in revenge for killing a family pet, but also because she wanted to be free again, and while

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