Literature analysis: “Trifles”
“Trifles” is a one-act play written by Susan Glaspell and it deals with the murder of John Wright. The play is about feminism because women protect one another although they seem to be dependent on their husbands. The main theme in the story is Mrs. Wright’s guilt and although it is not proven, it is implicated, bit the women still protect her.
The characters in the story are: County Attorney, Henderson, the Sheriff, his wife, Mrs. Peters, Hale, a farmer who is a neighbor and his wife Mrs. Hale. Mrs. Wright is deprived of her name as are the other two women in the story, which shows their treatment by the society. Only in the conversation of Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters is it possible to find out that Mrs. Wrights name was Minnie Foster. They talk about her while feeling pity for her regardless of the crime she may or may not have committed. They mention Minnie as a city girl who sang beautifully in a choir and they regret the fact that she grew old and became a lonely elderly woman who never had children. The fact that each woman is referred to as Mrs. Means that their status in the society depends on the status of her husband. At one point, County Attorney says: “No, Mrs. Peters doesn’t need supervising. For that matter, a sheriff’s wife is married to the law” (Glaspell). Women are reduced to being housewives and mothers while being completely deprived of their own identity. It seems that they are not happy with their position in the society which is why they justify Mrs. Wright’s actions whatever they might be. Mrs. Wright probably killed her husband and: “Women who kill evoke fear because they challenge societal constructs of femininity – passivity, restraint, and nurture; thus the rush to isolate and label the female offender, to cauterize her act” (Ben Zvi 141). It seems to be unnatural for a woman to commit a murder, but in this play Minnie’s actions are justified because of the fact that she was oppressed for thirty years.
The men in the play are led by the Sheriff and they are trying to find evidence of Mrs. Wright’s murder. They do not believe her that she found her husband hanged and that it did not wake her up. They are assured of the fact that she killed her husband although it is obvious that special physical and mental skills are necessary for a person to commit such a crime. “The complexity of Minnie’s life with her abusive husband is understood by the two women as they discover objects in her kitchen” (Angel 549). At first they discover the birdcage and then its broken door as well as the dead canary whose neck has been wrung. The bird is hidden in a box and the women do not show it to the men because they feel solidarity towards Mrs. Wright. Both of them sympathize with the woman who is in jail for murdering her husband in spite of the lack of evidence and they regret not having visited her more often in the past. They think that they should have paid more attention to Minnie while she was younger and they blame themselves for avoiding her because her house was not cheerful. This suggests that the husband was abusive and the lack of children contributed to the establishment of an unhealthy relationship. The investigation in the play is conducted by men In “Trifles” the action follows the development of a detective while their wives serve as jury members. Men and women seem to be on opposing sides: “Trifles” depicts an unequal trial of strength between the male prosecution story and the female defense story, in which the female protagonists hide the emerging defense story to avoid incriminating the accused. (Stobbs Wright 226). The women feel the need to hide potential evidence because they believe that it might make Mrs. Wright’s situation worse. They do not believe that she should be in jail, but they are aware of the fact that people have to abide by the law. The women are not Mrs. Wrights close friends, but they understand her and her struggles which may have led her to kill her husband.
Women are seen as morally righteous because they belong to the household and to the private sphere where they are not under the influence of the public space. In spite of that they search recognition: “The dominant theory of the drama joined with the prevailing belief in women’s moral superiority” (Stephens 48). The women are morally superior in this play and their integrity is not questioned. They are allowed to search for Minnie’s personal things unsupervised at the crime scene and they take advantage of it. Susan Glaspell “portrays the middle class critically, particularly for the restrictions it places on women” (Carpentier 97). Women are essentially restricted from the public sphere, but they make their presence in an indirect way. The husbands in “Trifles” respect their women even though they treat them as ignorant and childish. They still trust them enough which enables the women to help Mrs. Wrights as much as possible under the given circumstances. The play is based on compassion on the female side and on rationalism on the male side and these sides influence each other.
Feminism is present in this play although it is questionable whether it is possible to achieve in the society in which women are subordinated to men. Women are careful when imposing themselves into the social sphere: “The social spaces of representation are good places to learn, because people suspend their personal lives and play at being somebody else” (Anderlini-D'Onofrio 170). Men have their roles in the society, while women have roles at home in a domestic environment. They are not supposed to be corrupted by the outside world and they are expected to obey their husbands. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find “Evidence of his cruelly successful efforts to isolate Minnie from society and the companionship of others — even that of a songbird“ (Kanthak 152). They hide this discovery from their husbands and from the authorities because they do not want to reveal that they have found the motive which Mrs. Wright might have had to commit the murder. The bird symbolizes Mrs. Wright’s struggle and the thirty years of her oppression. She keeps the dead canary in a cloth hidden with her personal things. Mr. Wright is described as a man who did not respect his wife or women in general which is why he got killed. The fact that Minnie chose to kill him in his sleep suggests that she did not want to communicate with him anymore.
“Trifles” is a play which depicts women who are solidary and who understand the struggle of women in the male dominated society. They are morally righteous even though they hide evidence from the law. Men do not take them seriously, but they pay them enough respect and bring them to the crime scene. The women notice details that the men miss which represents them as good observers capable of being independent in the public sphere as well.
Works Cited
Glaspell, Susan. "Trifles." One-Act-Plays.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 July 2016. <http://www.one-act-plays.com/dramas/trifles.html>.
Ben-Zvi, Linda. ""Murder, She Wrote": The Genesis of Susan Glaspell's "Trifles"." Theatre Journal 44.2 (1992): 141-62. Print.
Angel, Marina. "Teaching Susan Glaspell's a Jury of Her Peers and Trifles." JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION 53 (2003): 548-63. Print.
Stobbs Wright, Janett. "Law, justice, and female revenge in "Kerfol", by Edith Wharton, and Trifles and "A Jury of Her Peers", by Susan Glaspell." Atlantis 24.1 (2002): 225-43. Print.
Stormer, Nathan. "To remember, to act, to forget: Tracing collective remembrance through “A jury of her peers”." Communication Studies 54.4 (2003): 510-29. Print.
Dymkowski, Christine. "On the Edge: The Plays of Susan Glaspell." Modern Drama 31.1: 91-105. Print.
Stephens, Judith L. "Gender Ideology and Dramatic Convention in Progressive Era Plays, 1890-1920." Theatre Journal 41.1 (1989): 45-55. Print.
Carpentier, Martha C. "Susan Glaspell's Fiction: Fidelity as American Romance." Twentieth Century Literature 40.1 (1994): 92-113. Print.
Anderlini-D'Onofrio, Serena. "Is Feminism Realism Possible? A theory of labial eros and mimesis." Journal of Gender Studies 8.2 (1999): 159-80. Print.
Kanthak, John F. "Feminisms in motion: Pushing the "wild zone" thesis into the fourth dimension." Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory 14.2 (2003): 149-63. Print.
