Meaninglessness In Trifles

I’d hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticizing” (page 820 and 821). The women, however, can relate to the hardships and responsibilities that are to be done and stand up for Mrs. Wright as the men are judging her without any understanding at all. “Nothing here but kitchen things” (page 819). This reveals how oblivious the men are to the female perspective, and that they do not even take into account the fact that Mrs. Wright had no time to tidy up her kitchen before she was taken to jail. To me, it seems obvious, and makes a lot of sense, that all the clues would be found in the kitchen because in the 1900s the kitchen is symbolic of women and where most spent all their time in the house.

The women are the rightful owners of the reader’s sympathy because they had often felt what Mrs. Wright had, the men had wrongfully acted in disrespect, and the women were written off as unhelpful before they ever had a chance to help. Because of the feelings of the women and the actions of the men, this case would grow cold and justice would not be

Wright’s belongings are incomplete and out of place, particularly in the kitchen. The women find this to be abnormal and begin speculating the significance of these items. During one point in the play, Mrs. Hale notices an uneven stitch in Mrs. Wright’s unfinished quilt. She asks Mrs. Peters, “’what do you suppose she was so nervous about?’” Because of the death of Mr. Wright, Mrs. Hale views the stitching in a suspicious manner.

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).

In addition, her choice of killing was to the neck with a rope as is similar to the way Mr. Wright killed her pet bird by wrecking its neck. Figuratively in this story, the bird is Mrs. Wright therefore, her killing the bird meant that she was close or already had killed Mrs. Wright’s true personality. The thought of this is what made Mrs. Wright rage vigorous from her cage as the thought of the constant oppression and the murder of her pet that influence her to reach for the rope. This scene is what drove Mrs. Wright to insanity as the constant nagging of abusive behavior and isolation is what made her leave her cage and remove the problem that was impeding her escape to

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.

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.

Mrs. Hale also states later that there is a great deal of work to be done on a farm (971). This is speaking of how hard her life is. Mrs. Hale also later implies that making preserves is hard work and this is why she cares about them so much (972). When it comes to the Wrights bad marriage the women imply that John was to blame. Mrs. Hale implies that Mrs. Wright hardly had visitors, although she was nice, but John wasn’t very cheery, but rather depressing and that’s why people avoided the Wrights place because it wasn’t cheerful (971).

Mrs. Hale states, “She was rockin’ back and forth. She had her apron in her hand and was kind of-pleating it” (Glaspell 1081). This allows us to know that Mrs. Wright was still shocked from what happened. It is also seen in her unfinished quilt and her messy kitchen. Her unfinished quilt has many knots in it.

Hale can be described as a leader which is a quality that Mrs. Peters does not possess. After discovering the dead bird, the women both decide to not inform the men of their discovery. When the men come back downstairs, the discover the empty birdcage. The county attorney asks the women if “ the bird has flown” (1119). Mrs. Hale quickly replies with “we think the—cat got it” (1119).

Within the text, there is a quilt that slowly grows in meaning as it is mentioned several times in discussion amongst the men and women. In discussion of the quilt, the men tease the women by asking what technique of quilting Minnie Wright was planning to use: regular quilting or knotting. Before the women could answer the men laughed and went outside the house to look in the barn for evidence. After a few minutes, the men return where the county attorney then asks, “Well ladies, have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?”

(kicks his foot against the pans under the sink) Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?” (Meyer 1389). In an ironic turn, the audience knows that the women have solved the murder mystery while the men remain oblivious of the truth because of their assumptions. The two women end up identifying with Minnie Wright’s abuse at the hands of her husband and feel the murder was justified. They then conspire to conceal the truth from their ignorant husbands and the County Attorney.

Minnie’s quilt, the dead bird and its cage, and the kitchen show that living in a man’s world is not easy. In the end, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale recognize that they too have experienced the same loneliness and mistreatment that led Mrs. Wright to murder her husband. The men don't value the women in this story and they don't see them as being very intelligent either. It is for this reason “A jury of her peers” is created. Peers being the women themselves as they stand up, united against the subjugation they have all experienced.

Wright is an example of a battered wife that experienced many levels of abuse” (Schanfield 1655). Schanfield outlines “physical and sexual abuse, but also emotional, economic, verbal and isolation as methods of control and domination” (Schanfield 1655). Mr. Wright completely dominated Mrs. Wright and uses isolation to make Minnie Foster inferior in their relationship and in society. In “A Jury of Her Peers” the women were caucusing over who Minnie Foster used to be and Mrs. Hale said she “remembers her as a lively girl with pretty clothes, wearing a ‘white dress with blue ribbons’” (qtd.

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.