Trifles is a play by Susan Glaspell taking place in and around a farmhouse in 1916. The owner of the farmhouse, Mr. Wright, is found dead when his neighbor Mr. Hale makes an unannounced visit early one frigid morning. As he lets himself into the farmhouse he finds Mrs. Wright sitting in a rocking chair in the disarrayed kitchen. Eventually, she tells him that her husband is upstairs dead with a rope around his neck. While Mrs. Wright is in custody an investigation is taking place at the farmhouse and those in attendance include; George Henderson, the county attorney; Mr. Hale; Mrs. Hale; Henry Peters, the sheriff; and Mrs. Peters. While searching for a motive at the farmhouse the men were distracted because during that time period women were cast into low positions in society leading the men to mock the women in this play written by Susan Glaspell whom is known to produce work with strong feminist concepts.
In several instances throughout the plot, men mentally and emotionally abuse the women by considering their jobs simply as trifles and unimportant. Ironically, the women accomplish something more significant than the men ever will by discovering actual proof that could result in the arrest of Mrs. Wright. In another instance. Mrs. Wright was so dramatically emotionally abused by her husband, it culminated in her murdering him and without any remorse. The severity of this abuse arises from the social issue of gender inequality in the early twentieth century. Finally, both Mrs. Hale and Mrs Peters mutually decide to withhold the evidence from the men in order to preserve Mrs. Wright’s innocence. This action contributes to the empowerment of women and the upbringing of the feminist movement Susan Gladspell hoped to
The male characters carefully look around in the bedroom and outside in the barn for clues. Why, the women are sent into gather some things for Mrs. Wright, who is the main suspect to her husband’s death. The women are mocked at by the men. The attitude the men at this time had toward women is provided by Glaspell in the opening of the investigation when the men noticed the kitchen. For example the male characters don’t take the Mrs. Wright when telling them about the important of having the heat on so that the jars of preserves wouldn’t break because of the cold weather. Yet, the male characters didn’t take Mrs. Wright seriously. As if they are just good for nothing women which lack the smarter to understand how to solve a homicide.
A work of literature often subtlety alludes to a situation in society that the author finds particularly significant. Susan Glaspell incorporates social commentary into her play Trifles. By doing so, she highlights the gender stratification that exists even in the most basic interactions and presents a way to use this social barrier to an acceptable end. Despite being written almost a century before present day, Glaspell’s findings and resulting solution are still valid in a modern context. Trifles demonstrates the roles of men and women in their everyday behaviour and interaction. The women use their ascribed positions to accomplish what the men cannot and have the ability to deliberately choose not to help the men with their newfound knowledge.
Trifles by Susan Glaspell is a one-act play centered around a woman, Mrs. Wright, who allegedly murdered her husband, Mr. Wright, in the night. There are no witnesses of his death; only unofficial confessions and he-said she-said talk. Without viable evidence and information (and the absence of Mrs. Wright altogether), the play soon focuses on a group of people who gather at the Wrights’ home the day after the murder. These characters include a male sheriff, county attorney, and neighboring farmer and their two wives. It is their job to determine what truly happened to Mr. Wright and piece together any evidence that would enable the conviction of Mrs. Wright. It is with the plot, setting, and overall use of symbolism that Glaspell communicates her message and themes. These messages and themes, which are the glue to the play, allow the audience to understand how unhappy of a life Mrs. Wright lived and how men viewed women’s roles as unimportant.
Peters deals with throughout the play. Starting at the beginning the Sheriff invites his male compatriots to investigate, rather than his wife, who he assigns the position of gatherer. Instead of viewing Mrs. Peters as an asset he sees her more as a “pet” who is there to do the menial work, and in turn be quiet and unnoticeable, “ I suppose anything Mrs. Peters doesll be all right. She was to take in some clothes for her, you know, and a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday” (983). Even with something as serious as a murder lurking in the background the Sheriff can 't bring down his pride and ego enough to ask his wife for aid regarding serious work. Men were to assume the important roles while women were cast the lesser, non desirable tasks. The Sheriff and his investigators within Mrs. Wright 's home dismiss homemaking as a futile occupation, despite that being Mrs. Peter’s embodiment. Mrs. Peters is ridiculed by men for the exact function they force her to do. While in the presence of both his wife and Mrs. Peters, Mr. Hale puts down the domestic role females play, “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles” (982). Mr. Hale by stating this suggests that women only deal with the lesser important issues in social construct. In connecting that women “deal” with trifles Mr. Hale underhandedly suggests that women themselves
Social gender separations are displayed in the manner that men the view Wright house, where Mr. Wright has been found strangled, as a crime scene, while the women who accompany them clearly view the house as Mrs. Wright’s home. From the beginning the men and the women have are there for two separate reasons —the men, to fulfill their duties as law officials, the women, to prepare some personal items to take to the imprisoned Mrs. Wright. Glaspell exposes the men’s superior attitudes, in that they cannot fathom women to making a contribution to the investigation. They leave them unattended in a crime scene. One must question if this would be the same action if they were men. The county attorney dismisses Mrs. Hale’s defenses of Minnie as “l...
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
Susan Glaspell in Trifles explores the repression of women. Since the beginning of time, women have been looked down upon by men. They have been considered “dumb” and even a form of property. Being physically and emotionally abused by men, women in the early 1900’s struggled to break the mold formed by society.
In the 1960’s women roles were changing they were getting more involved in the American society. While working as a journalist Susan Glaspell reported a case of a murder which influenced her to write the play Trifles. In the play, Trifles the women are being presented as weak and powerless, a murder has been committed by Minnie Wright. There are a total of five characters in the play, three of them are men and the other two are females. The males are the county attorney, sheriff, and a neighbor farmer. The women are Mrs. Peter and Mrs. Hale. The men are searching for clues to convict Minnie of the crime, while the women find the most important pieces to the crime. In the play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell, the author demonstrates feminist stereotypes, representations of genders during the era when women had less power.
In Trifles, the play takes place at an abandon house at a farm where John Wright and his wife, Minnie Wright lived. John was killed with a rope around his neck while his wife was asleep. The neighbor, county attorney and sheriff came to the crime scene for investigation. Along with them came their wives, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters; they were told to grab some belongings for Mrs. Wright that she may need while she’s in custody. Once they all entered the home the men dismissed the kitchen finding it as unimportant. The three men focused more on legal regulations of the law. The play was mostly revolved around the women, discovering the motive through “trifles” and other symbolic things that had significance to Minnie’s guilt. When Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters understood the reason behind the murdering they hid the evidence from their husbands, and kept quiet. Many readers would visualize this play as a feminist point of view due to women’s bonding in discovering Minnie’s oppressive life after marriage. However Glaspell, provokes two ethical paradigms that have different perspectives of justice. Glaspell uses symbolism to characterize women’s method in a subjective way, by empowering themselves through silence, memories of her and their own lives as well as having empathy about her sit...
...g to conceive to her audience by proving all opinions matter no matter whose it is. By looking in the past the audience can see that the story shows some significant similarities to the time it was written in. Glaspell shows women how a united cause can show the world that women should have just as much rights as men do. The theme of the story is expressly told through how and why Mr. Wright is murdered and Mrs. Peters transformation at the end of the story. Film adaptations that changed the title of Trifles to A Jury of Her Peers probably did it to appeal to the male audience and include a double meaning of how a jury can hold bias even with evidence directly given to them.
From the beginning the women of “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell do not seem to have a significant role in the play. These women appear to just be along for the ride while their husbands do the dirty work of searching through the crime scene. In the end even though they serve as secondary characters to their husbands, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters play a large role in portraying the theme of this play, and without them the plot would not have been conducted nearly the same way to get the message out to the audience.
Susan Glaspell highlights the settings as theatrical metaphors for male dominated society in the early 20th century. “Trifles” begins with an investigation into the murder of Mr. Wright. The crime scene is taken at his farmhouse where clues are found that reveals Minnie Wright to be a suspect of murder. In the beginning of the play, it clearly embodies the problems of subordination of women. For example, there are two main characters in this play—Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, who are brought along with the sheriff and attorney to find evidence for Mr. Wright’s murder. The men gather and work together at the stove and they talk with each other in familiarity while women “stand close together near the door behind men” (Glaspell 444). Perhaps the location of the women standing behind the men near the door reflects also their secondary or inferior social standing in the eyes of the men. Moreover, it seems that the wo...
Protection must be guarded, justice must be served and relationships must be scared. In “Trifles”, Susan Glaspell approaches all three. By utilizing the conflict of law and justice, she explores the social struggle between man and woman as well as the separation between public and private affairs. Each aspect is developed completely in the work and help evaluate the discrepancies throughout the story. Forced to deal with a dramatic murder, a group of individuals face a complicated situation.