Susan Glaspell’s story, Trifles, is a story of many contradictions. The story is tip-toeing around two viewpoints. The reader can place themselves in the shoes of both the male and female characters; Glaspell uses these differing viewpoints to show gender conflicts common to the time. In order to understand the conflicts, the reader must first examine the setting. From there the reader can then see how the men in the story view the women, how the women in the story see the men, and how each of the character’s moral compass is portrayed to match his or her viewpoint. The story presents gender conflicts in the form of a murder investigation. Glaspell sets the story up with Mr. Hale stopping by the Wright home to discuss a communal phone. It is here the reader catches a glimpse of gender issues first arising. Mr. Hale explains Mr. Wright and Mrs. Wright as having different views on the community phone. Mr. Hale was saying “he had talked to Mr. Wright about the phone before, and Wright had dismissed it because he wanted peace and quiet. He thought if he talked about it before Mrs. Wright, John might change his mind; although he did not know what his wife wanted made much difference to Mr. Wright” (Trifles). From here, the story moves to the main setting of the Wright’s home. As the story traverses the setting of the house, the women take notice on how dirty it is, and begin to clean up certain areas of the house. The men make the comment on Mrs. Wright’s
Gabal Said The Trifles of Society The society holds different realities to act naturally obvious, that all men are made equivalent, and that they are enriched by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that include; liberty, life, and the quest for happiness among others. "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell, is a one-demonstration play, which incorporates components of what the women’s suffrage development is about. The play from Glaspell recounts the tale of a murder riddle of the wedded couple of Mrs. Minnie Wright and her better half, the murder casualty, John Wright; this story likewise joins the temperament of society at the time towards women, and how they were seen as trifled in the eyes of society as they are under the subordinate of men.
The topic that I have chosen for my upcoming research paper is a comparison of the women in three literary works: Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Susan Glaspell’s Trifles, and Henrik Isben’s A Doll House. Specifically, I want to analyze the similarities between the five women—Louise Mallard, Minnie Wright, Mrs. Peters, Mrs. Hale, and Nora Helmer—such as their situations, motivations, and ultimately, the decisions at the end of their stories that stem from the same source: their society. I also want to compare the men in these stories, and how their similarities led to the stories’ outcomes just as much as the women’s. The decisions I am referring to are Louise’s death—which,
It depicts the social status of how men acted towards women during the 1900s. Minnie Wright’s character shows the marriage of a lower class, however, it had been unwoven because the marriage ended in the death of her husband. Susan Glaspell ’s play “Trifles”, was written in the context of American Literature, with its depiction of Minnie Wright’s plight and lower class status. Glaspell has similarities to Virginia Woolf’s writing in “Professions for Women” about the relationship of social status and women’s subordination and oppression.
In the article "Silent Justice in a Different Key: Glaspell's 'Trifles'" by Suzy Clarkson Holstein, Holstein emphasizes the differences between the male and female perspectives from the occurring events in the play "Trifles.” Today it is evident that men and females think very differently. Males think based on their motor skills and females base their thoughts on their intuition and emotions. In the play "Trifles" the opening scene introduces the sheriff, Mr. Peters, and an attorney, Mr. Henderson, who are investigating the stone-cold murder of John Wright, who was strangled to death.
In this section of Drama and Dramatic Poetry, my English class read “Trifles” and “POOF!”. “Trifles” is a one-act play that is dramatic and serious. In this play, the husband, John Wright, was found strangled with a rope in his bedroom and all of the evidence points to his wife, Minnie Foster. The question explored throughout the play is why she killed him. The story hints that she was a victim of domestic violence, but the audience cannot be absolutely sure because it does not outright say it.
Alice Walker’s story “Roselily” is about hardships and doing what is best for the ones you love. The story elegantly shows Roselily’s emotions and thoughts about her marriage through diction and symbolism. These literary devices portray an unsure mother about her decision to marry a religious man for the sake of her children and her future. In the very beginning of the story Roselily describe herself as “dragging herself across the world” (A. Walker 266).
In Susan Glaspell's 1916 play ‘Trifles”, the absent character, Minnie Wright is suspected of killing her husband, though there is no clear-cut motive available to the County Attorney or Sheriff. We are introduced to both the crime and the suspect through the eyes of those present to investigate the crime and the wives there to gather personal items for her. In the statement given by Hale, we are advised that Mrs. Wright seems incoherent or dazed upon his encounter with her. Hale further states, when he inquired of her husband, Mrs, Wright showed no emotion or concern at the notification of her husband’s death.
Mrs. Wright is the main character in Susan Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles. While Mrs. Wright is being held by the police for her husband’s murder, a few men go to investigate her home, and a few women go along to gather some of her things to bring to her in jail. As the ladies collect Mrs. Wright’s possessions, they begin to come across trifles. The trifles include: a messy kitchen, a poorly sewn quilt, and a broken bird cage with a missing bird. The women view these items as important clues, and withhold their findings from the men so that they could help Mrs. Wright out of her troubles.
The story opens with Mrs. Wright imprisoned for strangling her husband. A group, the mostly composed of men, travel to the Wright house in the hopes that they find incriminating evidence against Mrs. Wright. Instead, the two women of the group discover evidence of Mr. Wright’s abuse of his wife. Through the women’s unique perspective, the reader glimpses the reality of the situation and realizes that, though it seemed unreasonable at the time, Mrs. Wright had carefully calculated her actions. When asked about the Wrights, one of the women, Mrs. Hale, replies “I don’t think a place would be a cheerful for John Wright’s being in it” (“A Jury of Her Peers” 7).
It starts out in a positive manner with the description of the history connected to the invention of the telephone. It’s describes as something “that could see us all connected through one branching cable” (p. 2, l. 17) and it ends on a summer day where “telephone poles grew small leafy branches”. In-between those utopic first and last lines lies the history of racism towards the African Americans and how telephone poles played a role. As a result, you can essentially place the text in 3 different parts: The invention of the telephone, the story revolving around the lynchings. This is an interesting part as it makes you think about the cruelty in the world.
There is no question that women have struggled over many years to be seen as equals by their male counterparts. Years of struggle and oppression continued throughout time, but the oppression took different forms over the course of history. Susan Glaspell wrote, “Trifles” which explores a woman’s status in society during the 1920s and the political leanings that perverted society at the time. The play demonstrates how women were subjected to mental abuse and viewed as intellectually inferior as dictated by American society and politics. “Trifles” exposes how political leanings in the government favored and enabled a patriarchal society as well as displaying how the Women’s Rights movement was beginning to combat these prejudices.
In “Trifles,” the men and women have opposing perceptions on how they find and what they consider evidence. The men in the play view things more literal, while the women find a deeper meaning behind
Wright it is easy to tell that she is not at all upset about her husband’s death. When being asked about the situation she “laughed and pleated her skirt” (4). Mrs. Wright is compared to a bird that is found later in the story. The bird was found in a pretty box with marks around its neck. Hale and Peters say that the death of her bird would have been her motive if she actually was her husband’s murderer, but the author utilizes the bird and its broken cage to be a comparison to Mrs. Wright’s life.
Section 1: Introduction Susan Glaspell’s Trifles is a play about the effect of gender differences on perceptions of duty, law, and justice. The play Trifles was a murder mystery that got investigated by the County Attorney (George Henderson), the Sheriff (Henry Peters) along with his wife (Mrs. Peters), and a neighbor farmer (Lewis Hale) with his wife (Mrs. Hale). The story took place in an isolated farm house that was miles from the rest of the community in the Midwest. The victim of this murder mystery was John Wright as he was found dead with a rope around this neck.
The women began to pity Mrs. Wright as they knew her before she married to Mr. Wright. The females felt pity, where the men just accessed the situation at hand. After the women examine the empty bird cage they remember the way that Mrs. Wright use to sing and compared her to her former self as Minnie Foster. “Trifles,” introduced the masculinity here from the Sheriff’s side instantly putting his instinct into saying that there was a murder that happened at the farmhouse, was caused by Mrs. Wright without any hesitation. He didn’t look into the sadness, or let the depressing home get to him as much as what his intentions and his well-being come into play before his