Trifles Essay, Research Paper

Susan Glaspell was born in 1882 in Davenport, Iowa. She graduated from Drake University and worked as a journalist on the staff of the Des Moines Daily News. When her narratives began looking in magazines such as Harper & # 8217 ; s and The Ladies & # 8217 ; Home Journal, she gave up the newspaper concern. In 1915, Glaspell met George Cook, a gifted phase manager. Together they founded the Provincetown Players on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Players were a singular assemblage of histrions, managers and authors. In 1916, Glaspell wrote the drama Trifles for the Provincetown Players. The drama was inspired by a slaying that Glaspell covered while working as a newsman for the Des Moines Daily News. Trifles is a short, one act drama about an probe of the slaying of a husbandman named John Wright. While seeking to happen grounds that his married woman was his slayer, the work forces in the narrative, Mr. Hale, the county lawyer, and the sheriff, are looking for solid grounds. At the same clip, two adult females, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff s married woman, are speaking and garnering some things to take to Mrs. Wright at the gaol. The work forces desire to happen something concrete, but in their simple Acts of the Apostless, the adult females find the existent cogent evidence. Although Trifles concerns a slaying probe, the narrative is non a enigma of happening the liquidator every bit much as it is a enigma of motivation. As the adult females in the narrative discover the motivation by paying close attending to & # 8220 ; adult females & # 8217 ; s trifles, & # 8221 ; the subject of the narrative is revealed. Using symbolism in duologue and assorted images in Trifles, Susan Glaspell reveals work forces s shallow position of adult females s intelligence and value.

During the early 1900 s, society perceived adult females as inferior existences. Throughout the drama we read duologue that allows us to see the take downing position the work forces have for the adult females. Mr. Hale declares that, adult females are used to worrying about trifles ( Glaspell 660 ) . In stating this he is trivialising the many undertakings and inside informations that adult females are responsible for. And apparently in his ignorance of how those responsibilities are important in leting a family to work swimmingly, he implies their humbleness. The comment about Mrs. Wright from the County Attorney, Not much of a housekeeper, would you state, ladies? ( Glaspell 660 ) is insensitive and undue. All because his manus finds the gluey residue of her exploded conserves, a dirty topographic point on her axial rotation towel, and some pans are left dirty. We know that all these state of affairss are outside of Minnie s control- what is non due to her non even being there is due to her desperate emotional province. These statements and others made by the work forces as the drama progresses show that adult females are merely non looked on with any significance for society.

Major images and symbols in Glaspell s Trifles besides reveal work forces s sentiment of adult females as fiddling and undistinguished. When the work forces and the adult females come to the Wright house they find a great trade of

uncomplete work. These undertakings are marks of an unqualified housekeeper to the officers of the tribunal ; to the adult females and to the audience these props help to set up the presence of a disturbed consciousness. The uncomplete undertakings in Mrs. Wright s kitchen argue that she acted really shortly after aggravation, or after the choking of her bird. The bird is a child-substitute for the lone Minnie ; the canary’s voice Acts of the Apostless to displace the silence of a coldly autocratic hubby and replace the sounds of the unborn kids. Through the traditional literary metaphor of the bird’s vocal as the voice of the psyche, the adult females acknowledge that John Wright non merely killed Mrs. Wright s fink, but her really spirit. Mrs. Wright was sort of like a bird herself-real Sweet and reasonably, but sort of timid and-fluttery ( Glaspell 665 ) . Mrs. Wright understands her husband’s action as a symbolic choking of herself, his married woman. It is non merely because he kills the bird, but because she herself is a caged bird and he strangles her by forestalling her from pass oning with others.

Mr. Wright proves his thought of Mrs. Wright being unqualified and unimportant by coercing her to go a homemaker and nil more. The drama makes mention to bottles of broken conserves in Mrs. Wright s kitchen. In her ain right, Mrs. Wright is much like the conserves. She herself stays on the shelf, entirely on the farm, until the coldness of her matrimony, and her life in general, breaks her apart. Her secrets kept under force per unit area explosion from their delicate containers. The individual integral jar symbolizes the one staying secret, the motivation to finish the prosecuting officer & # 8217 ; s instance. When Mr. Wright is found dead Mrs. Wright is said to be patching a comforter. The inquiry is raised as to if she is traveling to quilt it or knot it ( Glaspell 663 ) . At the terminal of the drama it is concluded that Mrs. Wright is traveling to knot the comforter. This image conveys the sense of knotting the rope around the hubby s cervix: the adult females discover the murderess. And they will knot state. The bond among adult females is the indispensable knot needed in covering with unjust intervention from work forces.

Trifles is a cagey manner of showing the social image of adult females in the 1900 s. Glaspell shows that work forces possessed a shallow position of adult females s intelligence and value. They were merely trifles. The work forces of that clip had control over that position and while adult females did non ever openly challenge it, based on the secret plan of Trifles ; we know that they did non hold with it. The point of this narrative is that while the work forces, smart as they were, were looking at the state of affairs for an exterior position, the adult females were looking on the interior, at the little things, the trifles to happen the existent grounds and motivation.

Bibliography

Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Detecting Literature Compact Edition. Guth, Hans, and Gabriele Rico, eds. Upper Saddle River [ NJ ] : Prentice Hall, 2000.