Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles is based on the culture of the 1916s when men were dominant and the women were merely trifles and were given no status in the society. Trifles is a one act play showing the deception of a woman, who rejects her husband’s dominance to the extent of committing his murder. The very name, Trifles, depicts that it would be a deceptive play, where something extremely wrong is expected to happen. The play totally portrays the twentieth century environment where women were merely a household administrator, whereas men a dominant figure who could criticize even in household matters. Glaspell focuses on the inequality of men and women and reminds her audience that the twentieth century myth cannot be overlooked where the law depicted that three women were equal to one man.
The play revolves around the theme that there is a difference in women and men’s actions. In the play we find that a woman strangles her husband to death in an isolated farm house. The people assigned to investigate the crime were the Sheriff, the Attorney and a neighbor. Two men’s wives, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, were also in the team. They go from room to room gathering evidences against the emotionally abused wife. The country Attorney is lawful and follows everything by the books, for instance, he interviews the witnesses and gathers only the facts. The Sheriff and the Attorney search for proofs they could get and come to the result that they could find, “nothing of importance” (Trifles, 8). In comparison to men, the women also take part in the investigation; they mostly discuss domestic matters especially the things lying around in the kitchen. Nevertheless, the men ridicule them and term their investigation unimportant. Regardless of the fact, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale recall their memories of Minnie Wright by going through the things lying around and replacing them in the right place. They find a dead bird in Mrs. Wright’s sewing basket; however this evidence is missing from men’s “puzzles”. The bird was found brutally strangled but lovingly wrapped up in a fine material. This sight created “a look of growing comprehension of horror” (Trifles, 24). Both women saw eye to eye and they presumed that Minnie’s husband could have offended her likings extremely, and for Minnie this could have been the real motive for the murder. The two women pondered over the kind of life they were living where they had similar behavior from their husbands.
Moreover, women are identified only through the relationship with men who are the superior members of the family. For instance, Mrs. Peters is instructed by her husband that she ought to follow the law strictly as she is the wife of a Sheriff. Mrs. Peters opposes this, “Not .. Just that way”. Her own experiences as a woman would identify her better than her marriage to Peters. The brutal murder of Minnie’s husband by the wife herself; is due to her rejection of imposed identity. The two women Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters could well calculate Minnie Wright’s oppressive rights. Mrs. Hale ironically expresses “I don’t know as there’s anything so strange, our takin’ up our time with little things while we are waiting for them to get the evidence” (Trifles, 17). This irony could not be understood by many in the play. Finally Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find themselves being rejected to a low status. They were not given a chance to excess their part in this situation so they remain quiet as it was assumed that they lacked knowledge and could not make use of it in an intelligent manner.
The story of the play revolves around the fact that behind the country women’s speechlessness there are a lot of emotional feelings; of which men are unaware and pay no heed to it. According to Mrs. Hale “but he was a hard man” (trifles, 22), really states that in spite of the good qualities a husband may have, such not drinking, keep his words and so on – yet his dejection makes it difficult for a woman, “just to pass the time of day with him – like a raw wind that gets to the bone” (Trifles, 22). This makes the women ponder over the life she would have to lead with such an unmatched relationship of husband and wife that is nothing but female ethos. This relationship of spousal understanding highlights as the main theme of the play.
Patriarchal dominance of men, where according to them, women are small minded, trivial, and not capable enough to make a decision can be seen in the play. It seems that Trifles is just enlightening women’s innate disparities over the authorities of men. Minnie’s isolation directs towards her “lack of options” and “the complete disregard of her plight by the court and by the society”. Glaspell through her play concretizes the place of women and the abstract problems she faces in the society. The writer’s technique focuses on the realization of the innermost issues of the female weaknesses and law becomes necessary to solve such issues. The arrogance of women in power acts as an empowerment. The women were deprived of the right to vote or serve on juries, but in Glaspell’s play we find women having taken this right themselves. This power challenges the conventional traditions of law and justice.
Trifles is a well structured play with dialects and there are only five characters around who the entire theme revolves. It is realistic in depicting the concepts of living style of the early twentieth century women. The entire play has an influential impact on the queries about gender and the conception of guilt. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are the vital characters who invade the entire situation of the dead man and relate it to their personal experiences. By the end of the play both the women have mutual consent about the situation and prefer relationship rather that rules. The country attorney is totally lawful as we find in Trifles, 29 “married to the law”, hence the Sheriffs wife anxiously tries to cover up the bird mystery so as to protect Mrs. Wright. The women keep silent as they feel their cohesion in the matter would affect a sister. Both the ladies are more concerned upon justice but the men were not concerned over their evidences and turned a deaf ear towards their conceptions regarding the case. They hunted for a bigger clue whereas the women for trivial things so the men discarded their ways. They even ridiculed the women, "(Facetiously). Well, Henry, at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to--what is it you call it, ladies!" (Glaspell). It was a trifle of these two ladies who really resolved the mystery and brought out evidence as to what had taken place in the house. To sum up, the play ridicules the feminine cast who are being overlooked and dominated by the male society, though they are capable of doing a lot more than perceived. Moreover, the play reflects that women can comprehend better than the men who disregard female views and decisions causing domestic unhappiness.
Works Cited
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Holstein, Suzy Clarkson. "Silent Justice in a Different Key: Glaspell's Trifles." Midwest Quarterly 44.3 (Spring 2003): 282-290. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 175. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Literature Resource Center. Web. 18 Apr. 2013.
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