Trifles - Analysis Research Paper

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El Dorado by Edgar Allan Poe

Susan Glaspell worked as a legislative reporter for Des Moines Daily News between 1899 and 1901, during which time she witnessed and covered the trial of Margaret Hossack, accused of attacking and murdering her husband. Glaspell kept files that recorded the entire investigation throughout several months and wrote Trifles 15 years later. The play has only one act and there are five characters altogether, three men and two women. The central figures in the play -- John and Minnie Wright -- are only referred to.

At the turn of the century, realism had already established itself as a promising direction that rejected the artificialities of romanticism to depict experiences and stories of people rooted in everyday life and relating to the mundane. When Glaspell witnessed the murder trial, as well as when she wrote the play, that was still a time when women's role in society was very much overlooked and there was a patriarchal dominance that women faced in all walks of life: politics, socializing, careers etc. They were expected to obey and comply with the reproductive and domestic role that society had thrust upon them for centuries. In male-dominated professional and political situations, women were hardly, if at all, allowed to express personal opinions and become involved in anything else outside the family sphere. They were not believed to be much capable of bringing any substantial contribution to arts, photography, literature etc., and were very little included in the decision-making process in society or even taken into consideration. In Trifles, Glaspell empowers the female characters and undermines the male authority. She enables the women to discover the truth behind the murder of farmer John Wright while the authorities fail to accomplish this, the men being more preoccupied to "arrogantly discard the women's world" (Hinz-Bode 55). Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, the two female characters in the play, are presented with more valuable qualities that allow them to view things differently and qualities that finally unravel the mystery of a motive for Mrs. Wright's doing. Because the men are so eager to ignore women and their "kitchen things," they themselves are unable to find the truth that is right in front of them.

Writing a play inspired by actual events, about women killing their husbands was a strong statement for Glaspell at the time, especially because the very idea that women would kill challenged the perceptions of men who took women as taciturn beings, silent observers, and passive travelers in life (Linda Ben-Zvi 141). Glaspell's reflections came as the result of her personal observations on the actual trial and investigation that took place in Iowa in 1901. In one of the records that she filed throughout the months of December 1900 and April 1901, Glaspell wrote: "It is rumored that trouble had arisen in the Hossack household and that possibly some relative committed the murder" (180). As a reporter, Glaspell hardly provided any personal insights into the story; she relied more on factual observation and information that was passed around by neighbors, officials and people interested in the events, which she related as such. It must be observed that both in the real life case and in Glaspell's play, no official investigation was conducted to uncover whether spouse abuse actually occurred. This type of passive attitude makes up the central theme in the play. Gender differences and societal disregard are sometimes causes of women's actions. Men "beat women at home and ridicule them in public," Ann Jones wrote in Women who kill (105) -- a type of behavior that was overlooked numerous times in past centuries, especially if the man was an eminent member of the society. John Wright was himself regarded as a distinguished man, "well-off," Glaspell wrote in her entry (181). In comparison, his wife was of "questionable behavior": she had left her husband, had spoken publicly about her troubles in marriage, and had gotten pregnant before married. Under such circumstances, the husband becomes a victim and the wife is prosecuted for the crime with no mitigating circumstances. In the play, the two women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, acknowledge it themselves: "But you know juries when it comes to women" (24). While the two men have already made up their mind on the woman's guilt and are off to seek evidence that would confirm their assumptions, the two female characters give evidence of their intuitive nature. They start to observe the things around them, they interpret, and they are able to uncover the truth and empathize with Mrs. Wright, something neither one of the three men could do. The latter are depicted as rather aggressive and self-centered while the women are more circumspect and sensible.

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Trifles is a realistic play that makes use of a simple language, which middle-class people in a simple community would speak. There are neither stylized monologues nor takes on life that would romanticize the play. The intention is rather simple: that of depicting within a real life story the differences between how men and women react to events in society. Most importantly, Glaspell creates a scenario that puts as much weight on things that are being said as on the things that are left unspoken. The absence of the two central characters in the play -- John Wright and his wife -- is meant to prevent the reader and the spectator from siding with either party. By also removing the three men numerous times throughout the play, Glaspell encourages the audience to identify with both Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, as with Mrs. Wright as well, something that would be less possible in a setting thoroughly dominated by traditional men attitudes. As the two women are left alone, they start to bond, actually identify, and empathize with Mrs. Wright in her absence. They share similar experiences from living in a marginal society, which makes them more understanding: "We all go through the same things -- it's all just a different kind of the same thing"(23). It is thus through this absence of the characters and the absence of romanticized visions that the audience can understand the value of women's perspective and take on life. While the men tend to judge fairly quickly, the two women are bound to be more conciliatory:

County Attorney: …Dirty towels! (Kicks his foot against the pans under the sink) Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?

Mrs. Hale: (stiffly) There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm.

One very important and dominant element in Trifles, as in most realistic dramas is the setting, most of the times dull and plane: little to no decoration, very functional, austere and, at first sight, with nothing to convey. In this play, all the action occurs in the living room and in the "gloomy kitchen" of the Wright family household. It is not without a reason that Glaspell chose this very room -- the kitchen in the farmhouse -- to unfold most of the action. During the time when the events occurred, in the early 1900s, and at the time when the play was written, the kitchen was the woman's domain. This was the place where she managed most of her daily domestic activities. A kitchen was a woman's territory. Therefore, placing the action of the play in such a setting, especially taken into account the male dominance in that time, was a way for Glaspell to highlight gender differences. In the play, the men often dismiss the hardships of women's everyday lives: "Well, women are used to worrying over trifles" (10). They are unaware of the hard work that women put into creating a family environment and of the difficulty of household chores.

The kitchen in Glaspell's play is "covered with a faded wall paper" (5) and equipped with an "uncurtained window" and "an unpainted wooden kitchen table" that suggest the austerity of the environment in which Mrs. Wright lived. Two very important objects are placed in the room as indicators of the type of behavior the woman endured from her husband: the birdcage, which is broken and the dead canary, which the farmer had strangled. Makowsky identified the dead bird as the "child substitute for the solitary Minnie" (62). In his opinion, "the canary's voice was to displace the silence of a coldly authoritarian husband" (62). Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are able to interpret the clues and realize that, Mr. Wright, having strangled his wife's canary, had in fact, silenced her very spirit, her own voice in the world. Both victims of the society that encouraged such male attitudes, the two women, having come to empathize with Minnie, having understood her motivation to kill her husband, thus choose to hide the evidence rather than presenting it to the officials.

The general setting in Trifles is also very suggestive. The abandoned farmhouse in a rural area, the harsh and austere winter months set the tone for Mrs. Wright's own feelings in regards to….....

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