The play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell is one of the shortest plays that I have read. It is also one of the least dramatic and extremely difficult to interpret plays. To understand the significance in this play the viewer or reader should have a better understanding of the cultural context in which this play was written. To do this it is beneficial to know what events were happening in the author’s, Glaspell, life at the time she wrote this, the role of women in everyday life back then, and how the suppression of women males affected their social recognition now and then. The play “Trifles” was written in 1916. In the early 1900’s, up until 1920, the women’s suffrage movement was still working to guarantee all women in the United States equal civilian privileges beside men. Susan Glaspell wrote many of her plays on the social issues of “feminism, socialism, Darwinism, and legal reform” Beatty, unpainted. Along with her husband they, “founded the Provincetown Players, a theater group committed to transforming American theater… into an artistic medium in which serious social issues could be treated realistically”. This is important to understanding the play because it brings up the important theme of the play of male dominance over the women. “Trifles” shows the audience first hand a case in where male dominance and ignorance of the women’s observations actually hinders their abilities to solve the case of the murdered husband, Mr. Wright. To get a further insight into how she was able to portray such a realistic incident, it is important to know that this play was written based on a real incident that she, as a reported, covered On Dec. 22, 1900; John Hossack was killed in his bed by two blows to the head from an axe. His wife, Margaret, claimed to have slept through it. She was arrested for murder on the day of the funeral, tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. However, the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the life sentence, and a second trial resulted in a hung jury, so she went free. Susan Glaspell, who wrote “Trifles” was one of the only female reporters who covered the trial, and she used the Hossack murder as a loose inspiration for the play. The book called Midnight Assassin that discusses the real case, and if you are interested, it’s a fascinating read. In 1900, when the murder this play is loosely based on took place. Women in the United States did not have the right to vote. This did not change until 1920. Women were extremely unlikely to be chosen to serve on the jury of a criminal trial. Why might we consider this to be a problem today, especially in a case where the defendant is a woman? One of the “trifles” in the play is whether or not Mrs. Wright was going to “quilt” or “knot” the quilt she was working on. As is the case for many of the “trifles” in this play, the question is more significant than it seems. The final stage of quilting is to attach the top, batting, and backing together. This can be done in two ways. One way quilting is to sew elaborate patterns on it. The simpler but just as effective way knotting is to sew a thread through the pieces using large stitches, cut the thread, and tie knots in it. The symbolism of the knotting is the fact that Mrs. Wright killed her husband by tying and knotting a rope around his neck. This is a simple, not elaborate, but very effective way to kill a man. Midnight Assassin,. She was not an investigator, just like women in the play, but solely an observer, just like the women as well. She viewed the world and the crime scene the same way that women in the play did. Unlike the men, who were looking for large key pieces of evidence, the women noticed small, seemingly unimportant, out of place kitchen items and connected that with the emotions and feelings of the deceased husband’s wife, Mrs. Wright. After the women notice a view of these minor clues, Mr. Hale says to one of the other men, , “well, women are used to worrying over trifles” McMahan, 1093. This line is the basis for the entire play. “Trifles” not only refers to the out of place items but also the women themselves. By them worrying about such miniscule occurrences they are, as the men see, not capable of doing a man’s business. When this play was written it was the woman’s job in society to be around the house to raise the children, mend cloths, cook dinner, clean the house…etc. They were not able to get jobs or live out on their own. In the husbands eyes they did not have significant roles in society, only in the house. Many men at this time did not show the appreciation, love, attention, and affection that most women should always be shown. Their role was to be the head of the house and provide their family with the necessities to live, nothing more. Glaspell does an excellent job of showing this by describing the kitchen setting in the play. The men overlook details about the house and Mrs. Wright that women notice almost immediately. As Jenny Cromie put it, “They notice Minnie’s desolate, isolated existence, her broken furniture, the run-down kitchen where she had to cook, and the ragged cloth-ing she was to wear because of her husband’s mi-serly insensitivity.” These clues, which could ultimately decide the guilt or innocence of Mrs. Wright, are completely overlooked as dumb or unintelligent, solely because the women found them. Also, at a point in the play Mrs. Hale describes Mr. Wright as, “Yes—good; he didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him. Like a raw wind that gets to the bone. She acknowledges that he was a decent man but, by the more she looks into the life of Mrs. Wright, she notices that he was not a decent husband, as were many of the men at that time. Greg Beatty found an important part of the play in which male dominance is showed at its finest. Glaspell shows their dominance, not by words or actions but, through dramatic devices. The play follows, strictly, the outline for a tragedy. However, Glaspell leaves out the closing of the curtain to show a different or a switch of scene in the play. Instead, this brought about through the absence of the men. Beatty stats, “Each time the men leave, the women exchange private information; each time they enter, the men force or prevent crucial decisions. This suppression of information was not fully by the choice of the women. Even if they did speak up and tell them about the so called “evidence” that they had found the fact that they were women trying to do a man’s job, would hinder the ability for the men to take them serious in their findings. The men would not be able to see how the “trifles” could be linked to the murder because that is not the way that they think. Beatty also made a connection between the names that the women and the men had in the play. The last names of men were befitting for them because of their position in society. “Mr. Hale is hale and hearty,” and, “Mr. Peters, whose name means ‘rock’, is a sheriff or a foundation of society” Beatty, unpainted. These titles are relevant to the women because that is the only name they are referred to by throughout entirety the play. They are referred to by society through the legal connection of their husbands and not by the independence of their first names. Even though they are individuals that take care of the house and family, they do not have enough freedom from their husbands to be called anything but their husband’s names. Mrs. Peters admits her duty to her husband and the law when she says, “But, Mrs. Hale, the law is the law” Here she clearly states that she is loyal to her husband and the laws. Also the County Attorney says, “A sheriff’s wife is married to the law” . Contradicting what she had say earlier she agrees with him even though she is hiding key pieces of evidence from the “law”. She has chosen to break her obligation to her husband and law in order to stick up for her fellow woman. Sum this everything up, “Trifles
” is not just a play, but a tool. A tool used to convey, to every person that watches, the suppression and hardships that some women had and still have to go through because of “devaluation” in a male dominance oriented society. When reading the play it is short, unelaborated, and un-dramatic. But by now knowing the actual murder story that this play was based off of, by knowing a little more about the personality and the early life of Susan Glaspell (the author) and finally understanding the strong male domination in this play, back then, and now, it makes the play that much clearer. can you edit that for me please no plagiarism
