Trifles
In the mysterious and gloomy play “Trifles”, Susan Glaspell symbolizes many key points that helps the reader get a better understanding on why such a drastic episode has taken place. Throughout the entire drama the audience is engaged in deeper thinking by the use of three major symbols. In “Trifles” Glaspell uses the bird, rope and birdcage to help represent the true meaning of the story.
”She--come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself--real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and--fluttery” (8). The bird represents Mrs.Wright in the story. The innocent canary was trapped in the birdcage just like old Mrs.Wright was trapped in her marriage. In the early 1900’s women did not yet have the right to divorce their husband.
Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." Plays by Susan Glaspell. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., 1920. Reprinted in Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia Eds. New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 1995.
One of the most important tools that an author uses to convey his message to the reader throughout the text is his language. It plays a vital role in setting the overall tone of the text and helps in foreshadowing with crumbs of symbols and imagery. This essay focuses on the play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell, first performed on August 8th, 1916.
The plays, Trifles and A Dollhouse use the literary tool of symbolism to portray the way women were treated throughout the nineteenth century. Susan Glaspell uses the bird cage and the dead bird to signify the role and life of women in marriage and society, whereas Henrik Ibsen uses the dollhouse. These symbols allow the reader to recognize the plays main similarities in the treatment of women, such as men dismissing women as trivial and treating them like property; however, the plays portray the women’s lifestyles as different which seal their fates. To begin, in both plays the men dismiss the women as trivial. In Trifles, when Mrs. Wright is being held in jail for the alleged murder of her husband, she worries about the cold weather and whether it will cause her fruit to freeze which will burst the jars.
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.
Wright. The bird had been Mrs. Wright’s last resort of happiness; it represents who she used to be. This bird was very precious to Mrs. Wright, that becomes obvious when the author says this,“ Mrs. Peters drew nearer—then turned away. “There’s something wrapped up in this piece of silk,” Silk was not an easy thing to come by. Considering that the women come to believe Mr. Wright strangled Minnie’s bird, they make the inference that he did not treat her properly and she would not have been able to get expensive things like silk often. If Minnie wrapped her bird in silk, then it obviously means a lot to her. The women finally understand what happened to Minnie’s bird when they take a closer look at it, “But, Mrs. Peters!” cried Mrs. Hale. “Look at it! Its neck—look at its neck! It’s all—other side to. ”She held the box away from her. The sheriff’s wife again bent closer. “Somebody wrung its neck,” said she, in a voice that was slow and deep.” The women know that Minnie liked this bird a lot and there was no way she would have killed the bird. They come to realize that it was not her that killed the bird, it was Mr. Wright, and the bird was not the only thing that he would have been rough with. “When I was a girl,” said Mrs. Peters, under her breath “my kitten—there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes—before I could get there—” She covered her face an instant. “If they had not held me back
Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." Plays by Susan Glaspell. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., 1920. Reprinted in Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia Eds. New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 1995.
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 birdcage represents how Mrs. Wright was trapped in her marriage, and could not escape it. The birdcage door is broken which represents her broken marriage to Mr. Wright. It also represents Mrs. Wright escaping her marriage from Mr. Wright. When the door is open it allows Mrs. Wright to became a free woman. At one point in time the cage door use to have a lock that locked the bird inside the cage. This represents how Mr. Wright kept Mrs. Wright locked up from society. Mr. Wright knew that by keeping Mrs. Wright locked up, she would never be able to tell anyone how he really acted. Mr. Wright was very cruel to his wife.
John Steinbeck wrote “The Chrysanthemums” where the protagonist, Elisa maintains her flower garden with a flower called Chrysanthemums. In a daily routine, Elisa’s husband Henry is a typical farmer who was busy with his orchard and steers, while Elisa, a housewife tends to her garden as the chrysanthemums were shown as Elisa’s children. Written by Susan Glaspell, “Trifle” was a play about Mrs. Wright who was put through an investigation where she was the main suspect in the case of her husband‘s death. In the play “Trifles”, the canary symbolizes a child for Mrs. Wright who’s also a house wife and she took care of that bird like it was her child. The bird (canary) in “Trifles” is symbolically similar to the flowers in the Steinbeck story “The Chrysanthemums”.
Setting a makes up a good portion of determining a theme in a piece of literature. Physical location and time are the key points of the setting. Helping to progress the plot along with the details of the setting and the morals and attitudes of the characters throughout the piece. There are many hidden ideas demonstrated throughout this work of literature from the setting. Trifles effectively displays many underlying points from locations and using many different props from the play. While conveying the thoughts and emotions of the writer, the setting can also provide more information about the conflict of the work. The details of the setting of Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles provide clues for solving the murder of John Hossack, and give vivid details about what women were going through during this time period of suffrage.
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, shows the importance of staging, gestures, and props to create the proper atmosphere of a play. Without the development of the proper atmosphere through directions from the author, the whole point of the play may be missed. Words definitely do not tell the whole story in Trifles - the dialog only complements the unspoken.
Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." Plays by Susan Glaspell. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., 1920. Reprinted in Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia Eds. New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 2004.
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