O’Neil 1
Becky O’Neil
Arquette
Eng. 112-01
December 6th, 2012 “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell During the 19th century, possibilities for women were severely restricted. Women were not allowed to vote, could not control their own finances, and were not able to work outside the home(unless widowed), any money or property they had was turned over to their husbands upon their marriage. Much of history is written from the male perspective. Women of that era were struggling with finding a sense of themselves and a certain freedom from the traditional gender roles society had dictated for them. Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” portrays these struggles through
Mrs. Wright, who is expected to conform but resorts to an act of desperation to gain her freedom. The tale begins when Mr. Hale pays a visit to his neighbor, John Wright, only to discover That Mr. Wright is dead. Upon asking Mrs. Wright what killed him, she tells him, “He died of the rope around his neck.”(789) The sheriff and the County Attorney are called and arrive at the scene. However, in this case the professionals fall short in their task to find evidence of a motive for murder. It is the two women who accompany their husbands to the house who uncover the vital clues as to motive. Mrs. Hale, the wife of the man who reported the crime, and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, are left in the kitchen. They are there only to gather a few things

O’Neil 2 for Mrs. Wright while she is in custody. The men see no need to search the kitchen for evidence, but are quick to critique what they see as her lack of housekeeping skills. They snigger over a dirty dish towel but Mrs. Hale rushes to her old friend’s defense, even though she had not seen her in over a year. She informs the men that “Men’s hands aren’t always as clean as they might be.”(790) On further inspection of the kitchen the women find that, all but one jar of
Mrs. Wright’s preserves have frozen and burst, making a mess in the cupboard. When Mrs.
Peters points this out to Mrs. Hale, the sheriff, sarcastically says, “Well, can you beat the women? Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves.”(790) Mr. Hale replies to this comment with, “Well,women are used to worrying over trifles.”(790) To the men this may seem trifle, but the women know the work that goes into putting up preserves. The men take no consideration or thought to the work that goes into that task. Picking the fruit in the hot sun and the whole process of preserving them. They do, however, reap the benefits of the labor these women put into them. The County Attorney does have the presence of mind to ask Mrs. Hale how the Wright’s got along. She tells him, “I don’t think a place’d be any cheerfuller for John Wright being in it.”(790) I see this as foreshadowing of future discoveries by the women. The women find a birdcage with its hinges pulled apart, realizing someone had been rough with it. Putting the cage aside, the women decide to take the quilt Mrs. Wright had been work on to the jail for her; to help occupy her mind. While looking for Mrs. Wrights scissors, the women find something wrapped in silk, hidden in a box. It is the previous tenant of

O’Neil 3 the birdcage, a canary and it’s neck has been broken. When Mrs. Hale sees the bird, she tells
Mrs. Peters that Minnie Foster, “was kind of like a bird herself---real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid---fluttery.”(795) She tells Mrs. Peters that John Wright may have been good but, “he was a hard man. Like a raw wind that gets to the bone.”(794) The women see the connection between the caged bird and the squelched spirit that was Mrs.Wright, the girl she had been was gone. Minnie used to sing, but like the canary, Mr. Wright killed her song too. When the bird’s neck snapped, so did something in Minnie. After years of isolation, with no children and friends who no longer came around, Mrs. Wright had had enough. When John Wright took the one thing she loved, that gave her joy, she took his life. Ironic, she “went for the throat” just as he had. If the sheriff and County Attorney had bothered to look, they may have noticed the knot on the rope was the exact knot she used on her quilt. It is the “trifles “or the little things that the men disregarded that would have told them everything they needed to know. The women realized what had been going on in that house and knew what had happened that night. The women decide to keep what they have found in the way of possible evidence from their husbands. They band together, as women, to protect one of their own. Hadn’t she already been through enough? Mrs. Wright had spent her adult life, isolated and under the thumb of a man we are lead to believe was a cold, abusive husband.
In the beginning, when in the kitchen, the County Attorney commented on Mrs. Hale’s defense of her friends housekeeping skills with, “Ah, loyal to your sex, I see.”(790) He had no idea how right he was. The women go against the grain of the time by keeping the information

O’Neil 4 they had from their husbands. They broke from the traditional gender roles that society had in place for women of that time. One things that really stood out for me was the mention of the cold; the coldness of the house when the sheriff and his posse arrive at the crime scene, the frozen preserve, burst preserves in the cupboard and Mrs.Hale’s likening John Wright to “ a raw wind that gets to the bone.”(794), to me, all this is representative of the coldness in the Wright’s marriage. The reader never knows the fate of Minnie Wright; if she went to trial or if the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. I choose to believe in a happy ending for Minnie Wright, that she got her voice and her life back, to live on her own terms. I believe that Minnie’s isolation was a contributing factor in her abuse. By her own admission, Mrs. Hale had not been by to see Mrs. Wright in a very long time. She tells Mrs.
Peters, “it, just wasn’t cheerful.”(794) The farm house was set down in a hollow and off the road. It is typical behavior of abusers to keep the outside world away. Glaspell’s use of names in “Trifles” is also significant. The name “ Wright” plays on the social stereotype of women looking for “Mr. Right.” Minnie’s name has a double significance, “Minnie” being mini or minimized, which describes her relationship with her husband and more generally, women’s relationships with men. The taking of the husband’s name is also important. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are not

O’Neil 5 given first names. The role that society has given them, is one that is defined by their husbands.
Mrs. Peters, who is married to the sheriff, is viewed that way, and not as an individual person.
The County Attorney even says, “for that matter a sheriff’s wife is married to the law.”(797)
Mrs. Peters herself tries to fulfill that role, saying, “Mrs. Hale, the law is the law.”(792) She tries to reinforce that reality until she is faced with the brutality of what John Wright did to Minnie.
She says, “I know what stillness is. The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale.”(796), at this,
I believe she is referring to the crime committed against Minnie, not the murder of John. I think there is importance in the way Mrs. Hale describes Minnie before she became
Mrs. Wright. She tells Mrs. Peters, “ I wish you’d seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang.”(796) The image of Minnie
Foster is used to show what John Wright has done to Minnie, how she had changed. John
Wright abuses Minnie by denying her her individual personality. I find two major metaphors that need to be understood in order to get the full impact of this play. The first is the bird/bird cage. The bird is caged just as Minnie is trapped in the abusive marriage. John figuratively strangles the life out of Minnie like he literally strangles the life out of the canary. The broken cage represents Minnie’s freedom from the confining role of being Mrs. Wright. The bird and cage are also representative of the role women were forced into by society , the bird being the women and the cage being the male dominated society. The second metaphor is the quilt, which I feel represents Minnie’s life. She has taken the pieces and put them into a nice neat quilt. The block she was working on, however was, as

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Mrs. Hale points out, “all over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn’t know what she was about.”(793) When John killed her beloved bird, he destroyed another part of Minnie, a part she held for herself. I see the neat parts of the quilt as representation of the quiet, abuse-free times in her marriage; and the “all over” pieces as times of chaos. The question was asked of the ladies, if Mrs. Wright was going to “quilt or knot?’
This was a decision Minnie had to make, but that decision pertains to more than a quilt, it was also a decision for her life. She could “quilt” her life, meaning she could go on living a life of isolation and abuse or she could decide that this life was “not” it, not the life she wanted to live. We know the answer the choice she made, as do Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. The women now see how Minnie was treated by her husband and how she is now being treated by the law. The title, “Trifles”, is a reflection of how men viewed women, as something small and of no consequence. The title, the names of the characters and the metaphors all work together to paint a picture, not only of Minnie’s life with John but also the lives of other women who live under the oppression of male dominance.

Work Cited
Portable Literature, Kirszner & Mandell, seventh edition