Brooks 1
Wendi Brooks
Professor Maguire
LIT 2110
4 March 2004
Trifles is a play about the death of a
woman’s spirit. She is overpowered by her dominating husband and in the end
killed him for suffocating her spirit. Glaspell characterizes male characters
differently than females. The men of this play act towards their wives like any
man would in 1916. The men are dominating and have very little real respect for
their wives, and women in general. It is as if these men do not appreciate
women’s intellectual ability. In 1916, when the play was written, Glaspell
opened the door to women’s rights movements. This story shows how the male and
female characters interact with each other and how the women are actually the
ones who solve and understand the murder of Mr. Wright.
The first notable quotation that
illustrates my argument is when the sheriff declares “Nothing here but kitchen
things” (Glaspell, 1240). He is basically implying that this area of the house
wasn’t worth even looking closely at, because it was only Mrs. Wright’s
territory in the house, and there would obviously be no evidence in this area.
What they are doing here is underestimating the intelligence of this woman. The
only thing they can see about the kitchen is that it is a rather mess, “Here’s
a nice mess” (Glaspell, 1240). They don’t realize that she was a smart woman
and is entirely capable of committing this murder.
Brooks 2
A bit later in the story the Sheriff leaves the women downstairs to
gather the few things that Mrs. Wright would need in jail. He says “I suppose
anything Mrs. Peters does’ll be all right. She was to take in some clothes for
her, you know, a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday”
(Glaspell, 1241). This doesn’t seem too untrusting of the ladies, although
directly after this the County Attorney states “ Yes, but I would like to see
what you take, Mrs. Peters, and keep an eye out for anything that might be of
use to us” (Glaspell, 1241). He isn’t as trusting, but still somewhat acknowledges
that there is a slight possibility that these women could find something that
would help them solve the murder case.
The ladies begin looking around the
kitchen and conversing about the fruit she had worked so hard on all summer
that was now going to spoil. They thought of how upsetting it would be if that
happened to the work they had put in themselves. They went into another room to
gather Mrs. Wright’s things, and Mrs. Hale asks Mrs. Peters “Do you think she
did it” (Glaspell, 1242)? Mrs. Peters responds “Oh, I don’t know” (Glaspell, 1242).
Mrs. Hale responds “Well, I don’t think she did. Asking for an apron and her
little shawl. Worrying about her fruit” (Glaspell, 1242). The women are having
a logical conversation about this murder. They are thinking of how her
personality has changed over the past years of her marriage to Mr. Wright. They
describe how she was when she was Minnie Foster “one of the town girls singing
in the choir” (Glaspell, 1241). When they
think of Mrs. Wright’s situation on a logical, non-egotistical, businessman
approach, they are able to come up with more of an answer to the murder than
the men upstairs.
Brooks 3
“What was needed for the case was a motive; something to show anger,
or –sudden feeling” (Glaspell, 1242). Mrs. Hale points out from observation
that “I don’t see any signs of anger around here” (Glaspell, 1242). “You know,
it seems kind of sneaking. Locking
her up in town and then coming out here and trying to get her own house to turn
against her” (Glaspell, 1242)! This shows that the women are looking at this
entire situation with an entirely different perspective than the men. They are
more open minded. The men in this story would have been wise to discern how
good women are at figuring things out logically because they put emotion into
it, and put themselves into the situation. At this point in the story the men
are oblivious to the women and are involved in trying to solve the case by
digging around upstairs to try and find some sort of evidence that Mrs. Wright
killed her husband. They are pretty convinced but they know they have to have a
motive in order to put her in jail. The women however, are downstairs looking
at evidence of the woman’s life, and the things she did everyday that would
lead to evidence that she in fact murdered her husband. The see things like her
quilt that she was working on, which was badly sewn near the end, indicating
she was upset about something or in a very big hurry.
As they continue to look around her
part of the house they find a bird cage that has been broken and the dead bird
that has been strangled. The ladies come to the conclusion that Mrs. Wright did
this to the bird, as a way of showing how she felt. She lived in a broken home
and was being slowly suffocated by her overpowering, demeaning husband. Because
Mr. Wright did this to her, she decided she was going to get revenge. The
ladies in this story were the ones to figure this out. The men weren’t able to
come up
Brooks 4
with anything as
good or as helpful as these ladies. By the end of the story, the men are
convinced that Mrs. Wright did kill her husband, but they do not have the
motive that the women are aware of, and the women don’t tell them.
When the men come back downstairs
they see that the women have been chatting and have gathered the things to take
to Mrs. Wright. The Country Attorney declares “No, Mrs. Peters doesn’t need
supervising. For that matter a sheriff’s wife is married to the law” (Glaspell,
1246). This shows that the County Attorney has a trust in the sheriff’s wife
but in a way feels in no way threatened by her because he feels she isn’t going
to do anything sneaky or do anything too clever that would be above his
knowledge.
We see that the men feel completely
unthreatened by their wives, and women in general. They have a certain level of
respect for them, but don’t believe they are on the same intellectual level as
themselves. This story proves their outlook to be wrong since the ladies were
very intelligent and came up with the motive the men never would have found in
the “kitchen things” they so nonchalantly looked over.
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