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. Hale’s description of Minnie Wright sitting in a chair emotionless, rocking and pleating an apron while her dead husband lay in bed with a rope around his neck suggests that there are unseen factors at the root of the crime. Too, Hale at no time suggests that there was any sign of forced entry nor do the Sheriff and accompanying investigators find signs of force. Likewise, though Mrs. Wright was apparently taken abruptly from the home, there was no sign of struggle, though the home seemed somewhat untidy. …show more content…
Hale and Mrs. Peters find that the daily activities of Mrs. Wright remained consistent with daily activity, having bread rising on the counter. Further, in searching for quilting items, the dead canary is discovered. Through dialogue, we conclude that the bird was purchased as a companion for Mrs. Wright when a door to door salesman came calling some time ago. The fact that the dead bird was placed in the decorative box indicated that the bird was cherished by Mrs. Wright. However, the apparent cause of death of the bird, an apparent broken neck, and the broken birdcage suggest that there may have been intentional harm caused to the
Three women, Minnie Wright, Martha Hale, and Mrs. Peters express sisterhood by hiding of incriminating evidence such as the dead bird while the men fail to prove of her complicity. This essay focuses on themes of sisterhood and gender roles, and the passiveness that manifests in the process of gathering evidence. The theme of Sisterhood. As the plot unfolds to ascertain the murder of John Wright, Mrs. Hale says, “it looked very lonesome this cold morning, it had always been a lonesome place” (Glaspell, 1992), while referring to the house of Minnie Wright.
Mr. Hale and his son, Harry, went upstairs and found the body in the bed with a rope around his neck. Alarmed, Mr. Hale told Harry to go to call the police through a telephone across the road while he stayed behind at the Wright's’ residence. The police then arrived to the scene of the crime and took Minnie into custody. We are here today to prove that Minnie Wright is guilty of the premeditated murder of her husband, John Wright. We have evidence that proves that Minnie Wright had motivation to kill her
The dead canary and its cage was a pivotal piece of evidence that the women discovered. The dead bird represents the old Mrs. Wright— Minnie Foster and its cage represents how she was
Next, the cases of Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey served as a stark juxtaposition to those prior. Nurse and Corey were not outsiders in society like the others; instead, they were considered upstanding elder women. Moreover, Nurse and Corey strongly opposed the girls’ “antics” and they challenged the investigation, to no avail. In these cases, we see some of the girls’ finest work in producing spectral evidence. Ann Putnam stated, I saw the Apperishtion of gooddy Nurs: and she did immediatly afflect me but I did not know what hir name was then: tho I knew whare she used to sitt in our Meeting house: but sence that she hath greviously afflected me by biting pinching and pricking me: urging me to writ in hir book and also on the 24'th of march being the day of hir examination I was greviously tortored by
Flannery O’Connor’s The King of the Birds is a narrative explaining the narrator’s obsession with different kinds of fowl over time. The reader follows the narrator from her first experience with a chicken, which caught the attention of reporters due to its ability to walk both backward and forward, to her collection of peahens and peacocks. At the mere age of five, the narrator’s chicken was featured in the news and from that moment she began to build her family of fowl. The expansive collection began with chickens, but soon the narrator found a breed of bird that was even more intriguing; peacocks.
The scene begins to unfolds in their minds. Mr. Wright yanking open the cage door, taking out the bird, and breaking its fragile neck was enough to make Mrs. Wright lash out, and in a heat of passion, kill her husband. As the trifles collect, the women worry that the men will see their findings, and have what they need to prove Mrs. Wright guilty. Though the men believe her to be the murderer, the women are trying their best to hide the evidence that will prove it.
The men of the group, much like John in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” consider themselves more capable than the women and refuse to consider Mrs. Wright as anything other than irrational. The men leave the women to their “trifles” on the first floor, where they discover a broken bird cage, and the bird’s body, broken, carefully wrapped in a small, decorative box. They realize that Mr. Wright had wrung the neck of his wife’s beloved bird and broken its cage. Mrs. Wright, once known for her cheerfulness and beautiful singing, she stopped singing when she encountered Mr. Wright. Just like he did with the bird, Mr. Wright choked the life out of his wife until, finally, Mrs. Wright literally choked the life out of her husband.
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.
She then suggests to Mrs. Peters that she should take the unfinished quilt home to “’take up her mind.’” This leads them to search for Mrs. Wright’s patches and sewing accessories. They discover a “pretty box” and assume it is where she keeps her scissors (Glaspell 1417). This is when they discover a dead canary wrapped up in a piece of silk; it was the missing bird. Right away they notice the bird's neck
The plays, "Trifles" by Susan Glasspell and "A Doll 's house" by Henrick Ibsen portray the way women were treated throughout the nineteenth century using the literary tool of symbolism. In Susan Glaspell 's "Trifles" she uses the bird cage and the dead bird to present the role and life of women in marriage and society, whereas Henrik Ibsen uses the dollhouse as a way for the reader to recognize the plays main similarities in the treatment of women. Even though the women in these plays share different lifestyles, they all face the same issues in their lives. In "trifles" Mr. And Mrs. Wright 's relationship can be described as abusive and lifeless.
The Pursuit of Justice for Women Through the Comparison of Glaspell's Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers Susan Glaspell first wrote the play "Trifles" and then a short time later followed up with the short story "A Jury of Her Peers". The story and the play contain many parallels such as: the setting, the plot, and the same characters. Even though they are very similar they have different titles which seem to be fitting for each. In the play, Hale states that women are constantly "worrying over trifles. " Yet, these trifles are the evidence the men need to convict Minnie.
(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.
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
He killed that too”, which is an exact representation of how women were inferior, muted, and defused (“A Jury of Her Peers 1643). Because the women felt so inferior to the men, they never spoke up when they found the dead bird which explained that Minnie Foster was the murder of John Wright. Another reason for this action was that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters felt united as women due to their social status and situation. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale chose to hide the dead bird and not to disclose the actual murder clues and details they found as it was their moral duty as
Trifles by Susan Glaspell is a play written in 1916 about a murder in a small town. There are seven roles, five of them speaking. Sheriff Peters, his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Hale, and the County Attorney Henderson are all trying to piece together what happened to Mr. Wright, who Mr. Hale found hanging from a rope in his home. Mrs. Wright, who doesn’t have stage time, is the main suspect in her husband’s death. It is understood she committed the crime by the end of the show.