Discuss the play Trifles by Susan Glaspell.

Susan Glaspell wrote the one act play,
Trifles, after working as a reporter.  The play is based on an
actual account of a murder.  Working as a reporter on a newspaper, Glaspell covered a
similar murder case in a small town in Iowa.

Before the
play begins, there are several important events that have already occurred.  John
Wright, a farmer, has been found dead in his bed.  Someone strangled him with a rope.
The only other person in the house was Minnie, John’s wife.  The police are going to
charge Minnie with murder. Mrs. Wright [Minnie] never appears on stage; yet, she is
discussed throughout the
play.

Setting

The
play takes place somewhere in the midwest in the early twentieth century.   The time is
the day after the murder.  The entire play takes place in the  kitchen of the Wright
home.  The kitchen seems to have been left with unfinished work.  The bread has been
left out; a dish towel in on the table; and there are unwashed dishes.
 

Women Characters Dominate
Play

Mrs.
Wright is accused of killing her husband.
 

Mrs. Hale is a neighbor who
has not been to see Mrs. Wright in over a year.  Her guilt dominates her
character.

Mrs. Peters
proceeds in looking at the scene with a less empathetic face and a more logical
approach.  Her character changes as the play exposes her to Mrs. Wright’s
life.

Themes

Men’s
Dismissive Attitude Toward Women

It exposes
the attitude of the male in thinking that the women are only interested in the
unimportant, trivial aspects of life.

readability="12">

 HALE: Well, women are used to worrying over
trifles........ And yet, for all their worries, what would we do without the
ladies?

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Not much of a housekeeper, would
you say ladies?

This is only
one of the disparaging comments made by the men to lessen the importance of women. 
 

Revenge

Mr.
Wright was an abusive husband. Mrs. Wright suffered under his dominance for years. He
went one step too far and pushed his wife over the edge of
rationality.

Loneliness

Mrs.
Wright was alone.  Her husband did not like anything that she liked. They had no
children.  Mr. Wright killed the only thing that she
loved.

Summary

When
the men go upstairs to search for information, the women hurriedly try to clean the
kitchen.  Minnie was not a messy housekeeper.  Something  happened to keep her from
doing her work.

The men have already implied that the women
are only interested in trifles. These are the vital details that the women
find:

• Bread that has been left out of its
  box.


• An unfinished
  quilt.


• A half clean / half messy table
  top.


• An empty bird
  cage.

The most important clue is found by Mrs.
Peters who has not until this point been sympathetic to Minnie. In a pretty little box,
Mrs. Peters finds the canary that Minnie loved so much with its neck wrung.  Minnie was
going to bury it in the box.  Obviously, Mr. Wright had killed her bird, the only thing
that Minnie really cares about in the house.  She loved to hear it
sing. 

In her despair, Minnie paid her husband back by
wringing his neck as well. The women realize that Minnie killed her husband not just
because of her unhappy and abusive marriage, but from her husband suppressing any
happiness that she could find.   The women  serve as an impromptu jury and choose to
dismiss the charges in the name of justice.

When the men
return to the kitchen, the women do not share what they have found.  Still dismissive of
women, the men are only concerned about what they have failed to
find.