The original title of Trifles was Jury of Her Peers: The Importance of Trifles, explores the gap between male and female perceptions of judgment. The central character never appears on stage. Mrs. Wright’s husband John Wright was murdered in his sleep and is already in jail, now the sheriff, the neighbor who discovered the crime and the County Attorney are back looking for evidence of the wife’s guilt. The wives come too. After the men dismiss the contents of the kitchen as trifles, nothing but women’s things and go upstairs to find hard evidence the women work on setting things to rights. As they do so they find unfolding evidence unites the women, and highlights the division between the woman's concept of justice, and the men’s search for legal evidence. The women look at with the details that shaped the specific act, and the men are only concerned with the law that is broad and therefore does not apply to the specific case. As the distance between the laws of the kitchen and the law of the courtroom increases, the women realize that there is no possibility of a fair trial for Mrs. Wright. They remember when Mrs. Wright was a cheerful young girl known as Minnie Foster and they are sure her husband behaved so heinously that they can totally understand how his murder was totally understandable. In a sense he had already murdered so much of her personality and spirit, along with the canary she resembled as a girl they make their own decisions. Then they dispense justice by circumventing the law and conceal the dead bird that was the only piece of evidence against her. . The wives are clearly secure that they are doing the right thing and secretive manner reflects their own superiority in the face of masculine domination attempts.
Written at a time when women did not have the right to vote there is small chance that Mrs. Wright would have found any justice in a court of law. The only chance she had was the women and that is the reason for the original title that included the words, “A Jury of Her Peers.” Women had no peers outside of their own kitchen justice, but in that milieu they executed more power than the men.
Susan Glaspell was a powerful woman American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, and co-founder of the Provincetown Players, America’s first modern American theater company. Many of her works addressed the inequality society’s treatment of the sexes difficulties of women trying to live their own lives without relying on men and how they circumvented the attempts at social repression. .
The Provincetown Players served her well and helped her to mature as a writer. As the first of their time the Provincetown Players were a major artistic influence at that time, and influence Glaspell’s life and that of others. It gave a much needed a forum and voice for ideas like her’s ideas and brought together innovative people and new thoughts. When not in Provincetown she lived in New York with her husband George Cook. They were in Greenwich Village, at that time an established colony of artists and writers. This then was a great major influence by involving her in a surrounding community passionately concerned with expression, socialism and feminism.
Bibliography
Annenberg Learner. (2014). About the Author -- Susan Glaspell. Retrieved from Annenberg Learner: http://www.learner.org/interactives/literature/notread/author.html
Bradford, W. (2014). 'Trifles' by Susan Glaspell - Plot and Character Analysi. Retrieved from About.Com: http://plays.about.com/od/plays/a/trifles.htm
Glaspel, S. (1915). TRIFLES - a play in one act. Retrieved from One Act Plays: http://www.one-act-plays.com/dramas/trifles.html
One Act Plays. (2014). SUSAN GLASPELL: ONE-ACT PLAYS. Retrieved from One Act Plays: http://www.one-act-plays.com/playwrights/susan_glaspell.html
Smith, N. (2014). Analysis of the Play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell. Retrieved from Article Myriad: http://www.articlemyriad.com/analysis-play-trifles-susan-glaspell/
