The Loyalty of Mrs. Hale in Trifles The major idea I want to write about has to do with the way Mrs. Hale stands behind Mrs. Wright even though it seems like everyone else especially (the men) would rather lock her up and throw away the key. We see this right away when she gets on the County Attorney for putting down Mrs. Wright’s house keeping. I find this to be wonderfully symbolic in that most women of this time usually allowed the men to say whatever they wanted about their sex, never standing
figure, a sinister butler, and a mysterious phone call. Susan Glaspell's Trifles does not fit this mold. Glaspell's mysterious inquiry into the murder of John Wright presents the reader with only one suspect, Mrs. Wright. Even though the court examiner and sheriff cannot find evidence against Mrs. Wright, the reader can plausibly argue the case against the neglected wife. Glaspell's use of descriptive language and subtle hints established the mood, presents the motive, and uncovers the evidence needed
and how Mr. Wright was murdered. Mrs. Wright is already the suspect, and all that is needed for the case is evidence for a motive. The jury needs something to show anger or sudden feeling so that they can convict her for murder. The men, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Peters, and Mr. Hale are there to find the evidence. The women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, are there to pick up a select few items for Mrs. Wright. While the men are going about business and looking for evidence to build a case against Mrs. Wright
patriarchal husband. Mrs. Wright is eventually driven to kill her "hard" (1178) husband who has stifled every last twitch of her identity. Trifles dramatizes the hypocrisy and ingrained discrimination of male-dominated society while simultaneously speaking to the dangers for women who succumb to such hierarchies. Because Mrs. Wright follows the role mapped by her husband and is directed by society's patriarchal expectations, her identity is lost somewhere along the way. However, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters quietly
being charged with murdering her husband. Mrs. Wright is the suspect in the murder of her husband, who was strangled in his sleep, found with the rope still around his neck. The sheriff and an attorney are examining Mrs. Wrights home for evidence. Mr. Henderson, the attorney, speaking of Mrs. Wright says, “Here’s a nice mess, ..Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?” (Kirszner & Mandell 1166) Mrs. Hale, the suspects neighbor, defends Mrs. Wright immediately saying, “There’s a
main character, even though the reader never sees Mrs. Wright. The story begins as Mrs. Hale joins the county attorney, Mr. Henderson; the sheriff, Mr. Peters; Mrs. Peters; and her husband in a “big two-seated buggy” (188). The team men are headed the Wright house to investigate Mr. Wright’s murder. Mrs. Peters is going along to gather some belongings for Mrs. Wright, who is currently being held in jail, and Mrs. Hale has been asked to accompany Mrs. Peters. As the investigation is conducted throughout
content, the main female characters are comparable, as Mrs. Hale, in Trifles, points out, "We all go through the same things -- it's just a different kind of the same thing" (Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, 1359). These plays show the varying degrees of closeness women can have in female relationships, and the role circumstances play. When Trifles opens, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters do not know each other, and Mrs. Peters does not know Mrs. Wright; initially establishing the women's familiarity
ignored their wives' thoughts and roles, and, therefore, they missed the entire point of the real motive behind Mr. Wright's murder. The social gap between men and women in the early 1800s provided the basis for Glaspell's story, "A Jury Of her Peers" and her play, Trifles. In 1917 when "A Jury Of Her Peers" was written, women were the homemakers. Although Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale fit the domest... ... middle of paper ... ...ll her husband will also be her salvation. Works Cited and Consulted
is done through looks and gestures. For example, "Their eyes met a look of growing comprehension, of horror...... Mrs. Hale slips the box under quilt pieces". They finally carry the evidence out with them. We are left to assume that the ladies will destroy the evidence making it impossible to prove that Mrs. Wright killed her husband. The ladies make an unspoken decision that Mrs. Wright did not deserve to be punished for killing her husband. In their minds, evidence of his extreme cruelty to
maintain are manifested as a mysterious, small-town murder unfolds. In the beginning of the story, Martha Hale leaves her house in half-disarray to meet with her husband, the county attorney, Mrs. Peters, and Mr. Peters, the county sheriff. The five travel up to the Wright household to investigate the murder of Mr. Wright. Mr. Hale explains to the county attorney that the previous day Mrs. Wright had told him in a shockingly matter-of-fact way that her husband was dead. She had said that he was
with line 120 where the men say: 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 her preserves to worry about. Hale: Well, women are used to worrying over trifles. These lines show the attitude toward women prevalent throughout the play. It is the men's nonchalance toward the small details t... ... middle of paper ... ...imple things in life, things of little
Although one of the main characters, Mrs. Peters, lives her life by what the men make her to be, in the end she undergoes a movement that changes her into an independent person of society. The female characters in “Jury of Her Peers” include Mrs. Peters, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Wright. These are the women who, at different points in their lives, turned the degrading things men did into motivation to go through with actions they never thought possible. For Mrs. Hale, this happened when she was only a
made to teach the audience that maybe things are not what they seem and that sometimes people must take a deeper look into what is around them. Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Peters, the county attorney, and the sheriff are the four main characters of the play that introduce the audience to the crime that has just been committed. The sheriff and Mrs. Peters are married so the audience also learns from these characters and their interactions what is expected out of a wife. These four characters,
appreciated. Mrs. Wright was “…real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid—and fluttery…” as Mrs. Hale, her neighbor, describes her (22). This would all soon change after her wedding day. With Mr. Wright’s insipid character and lack of patience of any joyous sound, Mrs. Wright’s spirit dwindled to nothing. It seems she spent hours at a time focusing on her quilts, preserves, and caring for the only life there was in the house, her canary. Even when Mr. Hale offered to get a party telephone, Mr. Wright responded
speak of Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena in the past tense, just like they refer to dead people. When Mrs. Ned Hale talks about Ethan and Mattie she said, "Yes, I knew them both ... it was awful.." Ethan even talks about himself in the past tense. When asked if science interested him he replied, "It used to." Nothing is happening to Ethan in his present life so he could only refer back to his past one. When Mrs. Hale was asked if she went out to Ethan's house often, she replied, "I used to go a good deal after
to them. In the play Trifles Mrs. Wright lived in a house that was anything but calm. In block eleven, first line of the play one of Mrs. Wright’s friends Mrs. Hale states: “It never seemed a very cheerful place”. This being a very odd remark the county sheriff asked her to elaborate. “No, I don't mean anything, but I don't think a place'd be any cheerfuller for John Wright's being in it.” (Glaspell B: 11, L: 5). On this statement alone one can take from this that Mr. Wright wasn’t a very pleasant
clearly dominated almost every aspect of life and women were often left with little importance. The Wright?s embody this view of roles in Susan Glaspell?s play Trifles. Mrs. Wright was a typical woman who suffered the mental abuse from her husband and was caged from life. In Trifles, a mixture of symbolism of oppression illustrates Mrs. Minnie Wright?s motives to kill her husband and to escape from imprisonment. In the play, the setting takes place in an "abandoned" and "gloomy" farmhouse out in
murder scene. The characters involved show that things are sometimes just as they appear to be, but sometimes we need to make some people not see in order to keep the bonds of sex from the begining of time. The protagonist of this drama is Martha Hale. She is a typical rural housewife that has lived in a little town in Dickson County all of her life. She grew up with the alleged murderer and had been to the house several times, but not find evidence to convict here friend of murder. This hometown
early 1900’s. Mr. Hale has found his neighbor, John Wright, strangled upstairs in the Wrights’ house with Minnie Wright, John’s wife, sitting calmly downstairs. With John Wright dead and his wife in jail, Mr. Hale, the sheriff, their wives, and the county attorney all crowded in the Wright’s house to try to find clues about the murder. While the men go upstairs, they leave the women downstairs “…worrying over trifles.” (“A Jury of Her Peers” 264) Unbeknownst to the men, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find
humans need to survive and lead healthy, happy lives. In Susan Glaspell's play Trifles, Mrs. Wright is starved of the human interaction and relationships she so desperately needs. Consequently, she is never rescued from her loneliness, is brought to the point where she cannot handle any more of life's saddening struggles, and kills her husband in his sleep. Through powerful and often ironic symbolism, such as Mrs. Wright's kitchen, the names of the characters, and the bird, Susan Glaspell clearly displays