Susan Glaspell’s Trifles

Susan Glaspells 1916 bend highborn Trifles uses human race of musicy ele workforcets of drama such as, diction and spectacle through the actions of the two wowork force as they rummage through a unusually messy kitchen to develop complexness and hold the attention of the audience until the very end. Glaspell uses irony and common misconceptions to look at her goodish message Trifles is also a play that reflects a light conception of gender and sex roles. Glaspell, a feminist writer, writes plays that are cognize for their develop manpowert of deep, sympathetic characters that stir strong principles that are worth rest up for (Holstein 288).Trifles opens up in its setting, which is a rural area of nor-east in a newly aban arrogateed farm nursing home kitchen belonging to the Wright family. The play is compose from two different perspectives. The perspectives include a males, which include George Henderson, the county attorney, hydrogen Peter, the sheriff, and Lewis uns cronkhed, a neighboring farmer, and a distaffs, which includes Mrs. Peters, the wife of hydrogen Peters and Mrs. Hale, the wife of Lewis Hale. The male characters enter the house as a aversion scene.The county attorney carries prohibited the investigation in an orderly way by interviewing the key witness and asking for the facts only. The audience hears only male voices for the beginning(a) quarter of the play as they go from room to room rtabooinely until they left no matter out, Nothing of importance (Holstein 283). The females of the play were very indecisive to enter the house. The beginning scene describes, The women put one across come in slowly, and sustain close to take aimher near the door (Glaspell 958). The women enter the house as a home rather than a crime scene.They are thither only to gather items for the imprisoned, Mrs. Wright. They are very nervous and timid, which can be determined by the diction that Glaspell uses. many dashes are used as the women speak slowly and thoughtfully in the home where a man was just murdered. Seeing the bread outside the breadbox, the broken fruit jars, and the rocking direct that Mrs. Wright was sitting in before and after the alleged murder that Mrs. Hale almost sat in causing it to rock back and frontward all startled and made the women uneasy as they wondered around the house (Glaspell 962).These details also play a role in the spectacle that Glaspell is creating. As the play progresses, they are able to put themselves in Mrs. Wrights position, devising them more comfortable as they explore the familiar kitchen. Mrs. Hale has been Mrs. Wrights neighbor for years and k at one times how grievous it is to keep up with the cleaning and female chores of the home, which is why she is angry when the men are snooping around and judging her (Glaspell 962). She recalls when Minnie Foster, now Mrs. Wright, wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up in the choir and sang (Glaspell 968).As the women find the dollcage and later discoer the dead bird wrapped in a beautiful box and realize what has happened in the Wrights home, they begin to make with her. They root think around the sole(a) quiet of her childless farmhouse (Holstein 285). Mrs. Hale mourns the loss of Mrs. Wrights preserved fruit, remembering her own hard work during canning season (Holstein 286). For the primary time passim the play, Mrs. Peters softens to Minnies situation remembering the time a boy murdered her kitten and whispered, If they hadnt held me back I would havehurt him (Glaspell 967).Holstein mentions, She also contemplates the stillness of her old homestead after her first baby died and compares it to Minnies solitude (286). It is clear that the women are able to sympathize with Minnie Wright because they share her experience (Holstein 286). The play begins to be ironic as the men tease and belittle the women by poking fun at their trifles such as whether Mrs. Wright would sew or knot her t eething ring. Mrs. Hale says, resentfully, I dont know as theres anything so strange, our takin up our time with little things while were waiting for them to get the recite (Glaspell 964).Holstein points out that evidence is nothing more than the little things (284). The first trifle that was discussed was a neighbors visit, which Mrs. Hale has on-going guilt about throughout the play. Mrs. Hale observes, We live close in concert and we live far apart. We all go through the same thingsits all just a different kind of the same thing (Holstein 287). Other examples of their trifles that are discussed are items such as the birdcage that no semipermanent has a bird in it and the square of quilt that is not nearly as neat as the others.These trifles become major evidence in the murdering of John Wright, but are kept secret by the women. The women ironically become the main characters of this murder mystery, which was groundbreaking in the time that Glaspell wrote this play. The men s eemingly disappear as the women instinctively uncover the mystery for themselves piece by piece giving them a certain power over the men. In the beginning of the play, the women are quiet from powerlessness, but by the end Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters ultimately find power in cosmos devalued, for their low status allows them to keep quiet at he plays end. The women are much like servants and other discounted groups, for they are allowed to have knowledge of subjects because it is assumed they will not be able to fox intelligent use of it (Holstein 284). By not turning Mrs. Wright in, Mrs. Peters clearly makes a channelise from the start of the play to the end. Mrs. Hale is luckily able to change Mrs. Peters initial thought on the discovery of Mrs. Wright being a murderer, which was the radical that The law has got to punish crimes (Glaspell 968).The men enter the kitchen again after carrying out these investigations with no more knowledge of the murder than when they started. The county attorney overlooks the trifle of Mrs. Wright being afraid of cats when he questions the empty birdcage, which could have been possible evidence. Mrs. Hale lie and said, We thinkthe cat got it (Glaspell 697). Holstein mentions, Perhaps Mrs. Hales remark is an musculus obliquus externus abdominis reference to the womens lock away, as in the old question has the cat got your tongue? The attorney is only interested in the visible evidence of the murder (Holstein 285).In the end the womens silence is no bimestrial a silence of powerlessness, but a power of function and choice (Holstein 284). The plays final line is the most powerful line. The county attorney remarks sarcastically, salubrious Henry, at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going towhat is it that you call it, ladies? and Mrs. Hale responded, We call itknot it, Mr. Henderson (Glaspell 968). Holstein discusses that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters purposely knot their knowledge and do not shar e it. There silence has become a mark of their solidarity, a refusal to endanger a sister.She ends her expression with a basic summary of the men in the play by stating, For the men in the play, the womens secret remains an undiscovered trifle (Holstein 290). Many aspects of Glaspells Trifles make it a moving play with a simple, besides powerful theme of women in this time period being powerful in the same way that they are powerless in silence. As a feminist, Glaspell is able to give women the power of using trifles and womanly concerns that men laugh at to solve a murder mystery with hard evidence, and also gives them the power to stick up for a fellow female and withhold information from the portrayed ignorance of men.Although Glaspell does not come right out and say it, she is making it clear that she finds men to be overbearing and lacking(p) to women contrary to the popular beliefs at the time this play was written. Glaspell does something inspiring by using the many elemen ts of drama along side irony and the notion of gender and sex roles to develop a complex, chilling, and entertaining play about something as serious as a scorned woman quest revenge on her husband and two women using simple trifles to understand why.