Drama Essay: Trifles Award winning playwright, actress and novelist, Susan Glaspell, is widely known for her classic writing style and polarizing content. Glaspell’s work usually tackles existing issues of race, gender, and social norms, which are centered on a pentacle like character that makes readers question the roles that they play in the world. Trifles is one of Susan Glaspell’s most famous pieces because of the underlying messages that are woven into the larger piece of work which, without question, help to enrich Glaspell’s play. Each message is then enriched through supporting elements such as theme, symbolism, and characterization, which help to develop the play. Though there are many themes that can be applied to this particular play, the one that rings the loudest is that of gender loyalty. The …show more content…
The canary in Trifles is a symbol of the unspoken martyr of the play, Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Wright has no true identity except for what is given to her through the symbolism of the canary. The women find the birdcage and they realize that the bird it no longer in the cage, but instead has been strangled. Mrs. Hale says, “She, come to think of it, was kind of like a bird herself- real sweet and pretty but kind of timid and fluttery” (Glaspell). Glaspell associates the oppressed life of the bird to that of Mrs. Wright’s. The canary was a beacon of hope and music for Mrs. Wright. Because of the dreary life that she led, the bird was the only thing that gave her purpose and stability. Mrs. Wright equated her entire happiness and joy into the canary and that was taken away from her. She avenged the stolen life of the bird because of her inability to obtain the life that was stolen from her by her husband. Mr. Wright took the light out of the bird as he had taken the light out of his wife. The death of the bird was a direct symbolism of the death of Minnie
The canary helps her remember the joy she had singing. The canary is something she could care for and love. ”If there had been years and years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful-still-after the bird was still” (Glaspell 557). The bird’s cage defines how when she marries Mr. Wright she became trapped in his cage. The broken door symbolizes that she was a broken woman barely hanging on to hope. Mr. Wright cruel and unjust treatment to her and the bird causes retaliation. When he snapped the canary’s neck she is forced to kill him.
In the play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell the ruined birdcage suggest that Mr. Wright broke the cage and killed the bird. Mrs. Peters stated, “Why, look at this door. It’s broke. One hinge is pulled apart.” and as a reply Mrs. Hale stated, “Looks as if someone must have been rough with it” (page 667). The fact that Mrs. Wright wrapped the dead canary in silk suggest that she really loved and cared for it. The cage and the bird actually has a lot to do with Minnie Foster Wright in a personal manner. Those objects are a symbol of who she once was and what Mr. Wright had done to her. According to Mrs. Hale, “She-come to think of it, she was kind of like that bird herself-real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and-fluttery” (page 667). Mrs. Wright
Mr. Wright is not frightened by the consequences of his actions towards Mrs. Wright and her belongings. The County Attorney thoroughly examines the relationship between Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Hale. Mrs. Hale explains how she has “ . . . not seen much of [Mrs. Wright] of late years” (Glaspell 4) which reveals how isolated Mrs. Wright is. Mr. Wright does not think twice about keeping his wife secluded from everyone because he thinks Mrs. Wright is incompetent in expressing her feelings towards him. The dead canary is found by the women and they debate whether Mr. Wright was a factor in the death of the bird. Mrs. Hale replies to Mrs. Peters that “ . . . Wright wouldn’t like the bird--a thing that sang. [Mrs. Wright] used to sing. He killed that too” (Glaspell 9). Despite his wife’s feelings, Mr. Wright believes that he can get rid of anything to satisfy his happiness.
One of the women made the comment that Mrs. Wright used to be pretty and happy, when she was Minnie Foster not Minnie Wright. This is just the beginning of realizing that she was just pushed to far into depression and couldn't live up to John Wright's expectations anymore. The Wrights had no children and Mrs. Wright was alone in the house all day long. The women perceive John Wright to be a controlling husband who in fact probably wouldn't have children and this may have upset Mrs. Wright. They eventually find vacant bird cage and ponder upon what happened to the bird, realizing Mrs. Wright was lonely they figured she loved the bird and it kept her company. The women make reference to the fact that Mrs. Wright was kind of like a bird herself, and that she changed so much since she married John Wright. They begin looking for stuff to bring her and they find the bird dead and they realize someone had wrung its neck. This is when they realize Mrs. Wright was in fact pushed to far, John Wright had wrung her bird's neck and in return Minnie Wright wrung his.
Between December 1st and 2nd 1900, John Hossack (a farmer from Warren County, Iowa) was murdered with an ax by his wife while in bed. Inspired by the true story of Margaret Hossack, an Indianola, Iowa farm wife who was charged with the murder of her husband John. One of the reporters, Susan Glaspell, decided to write a literary version of this investigation and “Trifles” came to be. Susan Glaspell is a feminist writer from Davenport, Iowa who started off writing for a newspaper called Des Moines Daily News. Later on her literary career she left the journalism industry and founded a theatrical organization called ‘Provincetown Players’ on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In Trifles, Glaspell covers issues regarding female oppression and patriarchal domination. Susan Glaspell’s one-act play still exists as a fascinating hybrid of murder mystery and social commentary on the oppression of women. When Margaret Hossack was charged with the murder of her sixty year old husband John, the man she had been married to for thirty three years, Indianola, Iowa. Killed by two blows to his head with an ax, John Hossack was thought to be a cold mannered and difficult man to be married to, but he didn’t deserve his death. In a cultural that denied women the right to vote or the ability to serve on juries, the community in which the Hossacks resided was not terribly different from the rest of the country. A women’s role was defined as more domestic than
Throughout the drama, Mrs. Wright and the canary share many similarities. For example, Mrs. Hale, the wife of Mr. Hale, describes that Mrs. Wright “was kind of like a bird herself—sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery” (185). Overall, the quotation describes Mrs. Wright as a gentle and submissive woman, the type of woman society expected her to be. In addition, although Mrs. Hale compares her to a bird in a favorable manner, she also defines Mrs. Wright as a woman that is fragile and uncappable of providing for herself, another social stereotype that women were subject to. Ultimately, however, the rigid social expectations for women served to reiterate their role in the home and to further confine them to the homestead itself, especially as society typically objectified and trivialized women, celebrating the conforming wife while condemning women to have their wings clipped by society’s standards. In this way, beyond her personality, Mrs. Wright becomes even more synonymous with the canary, an estranged creature confined behind bars as an aesthetic spectacle that is unable to sing an independent song.
Susan Glaspell’s story “Trifles” is based on a true story many decades ago when women were treated as second class citizens. This story focuses on two women in the shadows of men who see their sex as superior and in doing so, miss the most important parts of their investigation. Glaspell uses space to show the bond that is slowly created between these two women that allow them to justify not reporting the evidence to the sexist males who essentially drop the ball because of their lack of empathy.
To make it simple, a stereotype is a preconception someone makes based on gender, race, or religion that in this case is by gender, and affects women based on their expected gender roles. Women endlessly have expectations that go along with being a wife, mother, or simply a female. In Trifles by Susan Glaspell, 1955 by Alice Walker, and Girl by Jamaica Kincaid women are stereotyped by men and told to follow unwritten but expected roles such as being seen and not heard. As well as how they present themselves, their behavior, and tasks they need to perform.
Susan Keating Glaspell was an American playwright, novelist, journalist and actress. She was born July 1, 1876, in Davenport, Iowa. To most readers Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) is still known primarily as the author of Trifles, the frequently anthologized, classic feminist play about two women’s secret discovery of a wife’s murder of her husband, or the short-story “A Jury of Her Peers,” a re-writing of that piece. “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” are extremely similar to one another in almost every respect. Much of the dialogue is lifted directly from the play and placed into the short story. Additionally, all of the plot points are the same, with some insignificant differences. An
In Trifles, the differences in evidence that the men and woman notice, led men to failure in the investigation of Mr. Wright’s death, because men and women shared different perspectives in the same setting. Hence, even though all the items in the home of the Wright family, held significance and meaning to the death of Mr. Wright, the male characters dismissed these elements as they were more interested in forensic evidence. Whereas the women, on the contrary, caught on to these clues and recognized the relevance, as it revealed the bleakness of Mrs. Wright’s life. The quilt, kitchen and canary/cage are just a few of the many symbols in the play that the men treated as mere trifles which the women weighed important.
What is a trifle? A trifle is something that has little to no importance (dictionary.com). For instance, the color of your nails would be considered a trifle. In Trifles by Susan Glaspell, women are criticized and made fun of by men because of the little things they worry about, such as the color of their nails or their hair. This exhibits the gender role difference portrayed during the play’s time period. The central conflict is what the plot is centered around. In Trifles, the central conflict involves the investigation the Mr. Wright’s murder. As the story progresses, we learn that the women’s trifles would’ve helped the men solve the murder, which is ironic. Numerous accounts of symbolism, relating Mrs.Wright to the bird, is also found
A trifle is something that has little value or importance, and there are many seeming "trifles" in Susan Glaspell's one-act play "Trifles." The irony is that these "trifles" carry more weight and significance than first seems to be the case. Just as Glaspell's play ultimately reveals a sympathetic nature in Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, the evidence that the men investigators fail to observe, because they are blind to the things that have importance to a woman, reveals the identity of the murderer and are, therefore, not really "trifles," after all. Thus, the title of the play has a double-meaning: it refers, satirically, to the way "trifling" way some men perceive women, and it also acts as an ironic gesture to the fact that women are not as "trifling" as these men make them out to be. This paper will analyze setting, characters, plot, stage directions, symbolism, themes and genre to show how Glaspell's "Trifles" is an ironic indictment not of a murderess but rather of the men who push women to such acts.
The title of the play “Trifles” is a major symbol of how men viewed women in the early nineteen hundreds, something small, and of little value or importance. One of the examples of trifles within the play is the bird in the cage which symbolized Mrs. Wright and the life not only she had to live, but other women faced during this time as well. Women, as well as Mrs. Wright, felt caged in her own homes, and some were not able to associate with their friends. Women had no right to vote, or have a say so as to anything except what went on inside the home as far as cleaning, cooking, sewing, and tending to their children.
After reading the play Trifles by Susan Glaspell, I have several assertions. My assertion is that Mrs.Wright felt controlled by Mr. Wright, so she killed him. My supporting assertions are that Mr. Wright was killed by Mrs. Wright, Mr. Wright was controlling of Mrs. Wright and, Mr Wright’s killing of her bird is what caused her to kill him. Mrs. Wright killed Mr. Wright.
In the play trifles, the symbolism really takes part in this perspective of humanity. The “kitchen things” as the men say, represent Mrs. Wright’s inner life. According to the women's beliefs, they can tell that bread not in it’s box, somewhat of a clean table, and broken fruit preserves shows that Mrs. Wright was not stable (Sofea). Another symbol the women observed was the quilt (Sofea). From their experience, a messy quilt would be made based on how they felt at the time. If they were depressed, bored, or not paying attention their quilt would not be made properly. In this, we conclude again that Mrs. Wright was not stable. Another symbol is the empty bird cage along with the bird having a broken neck (Sofea). The bird not only is a piece of evidence and a motive to the case thee men need but, also represents