In Trifles by Susan Glaspell, the central character remains unseen for the entirety of the piece. “The central character - the person whose actions are to be understood - is absent, thus rendering her all the more a figurative blank space” (Keetley 342). The audience never sees or hears Minnie Wright throughout the piece, and therefor cannot develop an accurate opinion of the outcome of the play, as they are missing vital information about Minnie’s personality. The audience and characters instead make several assumptions about the truth that cannot be verified without closer inspection of Minnie’s personality and experiences. Glaspell’s use of an unseen central character in Trifles causes the story to develop based on assumptions made by both the audience and the characters and ultimately leads the audience to question the outcome of the play.
“Almost every action of the farmwives in this tightly compressed play is designed to make Minnie's presence felt” (Noe 11). While it is true on first glance that the audience can empathize with Minnie and that her present is felt, on further inspection it is realized that without hearing from Minnie directly and seeing her responses to questions we cannot be certain of the outcome of the story. The audience creates the backstory of Minnie and John’s marriage without meeting either, or hearing about them from a reliable source. “His [Mr. Hale’s] comment that he didn’t think Minnie's view on the question would make any difference to her husband, as well as the discovery of the strangled canary and broken bird cage, suggests that Minnie was habitually silenced and dominated by her husband; and that conflict between the Wrights may often have been resolved through violence” (Noe 13). Given no ...
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...Importance Of Trifles." Studies In Short Fiction 21.1 (1984): 1. Literary Reference Center. Web. 29 Mar. 2014.
Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 1383-93. Print.
Hedges, Elaine. “A Jury of Her Peers." Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 154-176. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Keetley, Dawn. "Rethinking Literature's Lessons for the Law: Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers"." Trans. Array Real Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature, Volume 18 Law and Literature. Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2002. 335-353. Print.
Noe, Marcia. "Chapter Two: Reconfiguring The Subject/Recuperating Realism: Susan Glaspell's Unseen Woman." New Readings In American Drama (2002): 9-21. Book Collection: Nonfiction. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.
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
Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, and Writing. By Michael Meyer. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin's, 2011. 1366-375. Print.
The Sheriff, Attorney, and neighbour Mr. Hale look for evidence while the women Mrs. Peters and Hale are left to their own devices in the kitchen. Condescendingly, the men mock the women’s concerns over Mrs. Wright’s stored preserves, its stated: “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.” (Hale, act 1) It’s inferred that women- who care only of trifles, something of little or no importance, must be trifles themselves. Ironically, these said trifles: the quilt, preserves, a little bird- which will be discussed later, are what solves this mystery. A major concern expressed by all the characters is motive; why would Mrs. Wright kill her husband? While discussing the marriage and disposition of the victim, its stated: “Yes--good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him. (Shivers.) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone.” (Mrs. Hale, act 1) Abuses, which have been hinted at all throughout the play are finally spoken of in these lines. Audiences find, that Mrs. Wright- “real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid” - would murder her
In “Trifles” there are two plots occurring simultaneously, the men have a story offstage while the women have the attention on stage. This adds a dynamic to the play to further emphasize the sexism within it, Glaspell separates them physically as well as mentally to demonstrate that the men do not think that the women were clever enough to find any evidence. By
McDaniel, L. Bailey. “Literary Contexts In Plays: Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles.” (2006): 1. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
Susan Glaspell uses literary elements that show the readers the feminist theme in the play. The use of characters in this play really shows the feminist theme the most. Men in this play clearly demonstrates how men wer...
Glaspell, Susan. “Trifles.” Literature: A World of Writing. Ed. David L. Pike and Ana M.
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 story is set in a rural community in turn-of-the century Iowa. This time-frame is one where women did not have the freedom they have today, but were instead seen as wives, cooks and housekeepers. This is the basis for Minnie’s isolation, her place in the society of the day. This is also compounded by Minnie’s husband, John Wright, who makes her more isolated than many other women of the time. We see that Minnie is isolated from love. Her husband is not an affectionate man and she has no children. In the story, we are told that after her marriage her only friend was “solitude.”
The main idea showed in Trifles, the male character, and the empathy described by the females is why the author shows everyone that in every section of this play. Throughout the play, the women were being ignore and belittled by men. With their role, it is showing how back in the early 1900’s men were figured as gods. Women had to give all attention to the children, housekeeping and especially taking care of their spouse. Even though the women think very different as to what men use to think, they still maintain a close relationship in respecting the man 's job. According to Elke Brown, “ As a sheriff 's wife, she is married not only to Mr. Peters, the person but also to his profession”. The women are giving their world just so the men can be satisfied with the job they have and not cause any other problem other than their job. During the play, the men are only looking for hard concrete clues. They seem not to see the reality behind minor things. Mrs. Peters is directed by this belief until she remembers the stillness in her house after a child had died. This memory produces a dominant bond between her and Minnie 's experience of isolation and loneliness. The scene where exactly Mrs. Peters herself attempts to hide the box with the dead canary in it. She is well aware that this action that happens, which can apply to on the society and the way her husband wants the things done. Just because her husband stands
and Trifles and 'A Jury of Her Peers,' by Susan Glaspell." Atlantis 24.1 (June 2002): 299-
Ortiz, Lisa. Critical Essay on “A Jury of Her Peers.” Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale. 163-166.
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.
Hurston, Zora Neale. “The Conscience of the Court”. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Cassill, RV. New York: Norton & Company, Inc. 2000. 340-350 Print.
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