Trifles by Susan Glaspell
About the Playwright: Susan Keating Glaspell was born in Davenport, Iowa on July 1, 1876, and died in 1948, she is an American Publisher, prize-winning playwright, novelist, and poet also. She wrote novels namely The Glory of the Conquered, Brook Evans, Fugitive’s Return, and the play Trifles, Alison’s House, etc. Her father, a salesman, was a devout member of the Disciples of Christ but maintained a weakness for swearing and horse racing. When she was young, he allowed her to accompany him to homesteads in Iowa and the surrounding states, giving Glaspell a favorable impression of the people who lived and farmed in the region, which she later explored in her fiction.
Characters:
George
Henderson: The
county attorney
Henry Peters: Local sheriff and husband of Mrs.
Peters
Lewis Hale: Neighbor of the Wrights and
husband to Mrs. Hale
Mrs. Peters: Wife of the sheriff
Mrs. Hale: Neighbor of the Wrights and wife
of Lewis Hale
John Wright: The murder victim and owner of
the house
Mrs. Minnie
Wright: John
Wright's wife and his suspected murderer
Title of the
play: Following
this sentence, the men all laugh about how women don't worry about vital
things before they go do important man things like searching the bedroom for
evidence. The
title's irony rears its head when Mrs. Hale's and Mrs. Peters' concern with
trifling women's stuff ends up solving the mystery. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters
would never have figured out what happened if they hadn't stayed in the
kitchen. Hale
recalls stopping at the Wright farm on his way to town with a sack of potatoes
to see if the Wrights would be willing to share a phone line. John was
allegedly choked to death in his sleep at the time by an unidentified
assailant, and Minnie said she was sound asleep and did not hear the attack.
She needs a new set of clothes because she has been detained for a full day at
this point, therefore Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale have come out of goodwill. While
Sheriff Peters claims that there is nothing here but kitchen items, the men
decide not to explore the room where Lewis Hale found Minnie despite
Henderson's suggestion that they take a look around in hopes of finding some
clues. Sheriff Peters makes the decision to concentrate their efforts in the
bedroom and the barn, where they believe the actual clues will be discovered.
Play: A play is a piece of drama that
is meant to be performed on stage rather than just read. There are many
different venues where plays are performed, including community theaters,
universities, and schools. The West End of London and Broadway in New York City
offer the best commercial theater in the English-speaking world. Its sorts are:
a.
Comedy: Comedies
are plays that are designed to be humorous & are often filled with witty
remarks, unusual characters, and strange circumstances.
b.
Farce: A farce is
a comedy that makes use of highly exaggerated and funny situations aimed at
entertaining the audience. Farce is also a subcategory of dramatic comedy,
which is different from other forms of comedy as it only aims at making the
audience laugh.
c.
Satirical: A satire play
takes a comic look at current events, while at the same time attempting to make
a political or social statement, for example pointing out corruption.
d.
Restoration
comedy: Explore relationships between men and women, and was considered risqué
in its time. stereotypes of all kinds & most plays are very similar in
message and content. Deal unspoken aspects of relationships created a type
of connection between the audience and performance that was more informal and
private.
e.
Tragedy: contain
darker themes such as death and disaster. the protagonist of the play has a tragic
flaw. Convey all emotions and have very dramatic conflicts.
f.
Historical: Focus
on actual historical events, can be tragedies or comedies, but are often
neither of these.
g.
Tragicomic: Start
with a sad climax & with a happy ending.
h.
Melodrama: It is
a kind of drama in which everything is hyperbolized.
i.
Usually, themes
depicted in melodramas are simple and without any unpredictable plot twists. There
are quite a lot of stereotypes in such dramas.
Types
of Stage Play: There are numerous play
forms, some of which are influenced by the environment like theatre in the
round, which can only be performed in spaces where the audience surrounds the
stage). However, for the purpose of simplicity, we'll concentrate on three
different kinds of stage plays according to their length: Ten-minute, one-act,
and full-length plays are all acceptable.
Ten-Minute Plays: The ten-minute play is one popular genre. As the name
implies, this type of play is intended to last no longer than ten minutes.
Since one page of a play corresponds to about a minute on stage, a ten-minute
play should be between ten and fifteen pages. Since the challenge in writing a
ten-minute play is fitting a complete story into a limited time, it is a useful
exercise for developing writing that is both clear and concise and that packs a
powerful dramatic punch.
One-act
play: A one-act play is any play with
only one act, meaning there are no sections or intermissions in the
performance. Ten-minute plays are one type of one-act play, but most one-act
plays are longer, ranging from 15 to an hour. As with ten-minute plays, the key
to writing a strong one-act play is telling a complete story within the
confines of a single act. Keep in mind that it can be challenging to switch
sets inside a one-act play.
Full-Length
Plays: In general, if you have never
written a play before, you should start small. To do this, pick a shorter play
type and use fewer characters. A full-length play is divided into acts, each of
which has several scenes. An act is a segment of the overall narrative. For
instance, a three-act structure will typically include a setup, a
confrontation, and a resolution.
Introduction
of the play Trifles: Susan Glaspell
wrote the one-act drama Trifles in 1916. It is based on a true murder that she
covered while working as a journalist for the Des Moines Daily News. She later
turned the play into a short tale called Jury of Her Peers. Both exhibit
Glaspell's deep sympathy for Margaret Hossack, the real-life woman who served
as the inspiration for Minnie Wright's story.
Characters in Trifles:
Mrs.
Peters: When the women discover the truth
about Minnie Wright's murder of her husband, Mrs. Peters, the sheriff's wife,
is more hesitant than Mrs. Hale and more aware of the obligations they have to
the law and their husbands, but she is unwilling to reveal the unearthed proof
to the men.
Henry
Peters: Like Henderson, the
middle-aged local sheriff, who is also Mrs. Peters' husband, visits John
Wright's home to go over the crime scene. He gently teases the women about
their interest in Mrs. Wright's quilt.
George
Henderson: The young and personable
county attorney, who has been chosen to investigate John Wright's murder and
who will likely represent the prosecution in the event of a trial, frequently
dismisses women's interest in unimportant domestic matters and disparages Mrs.
Wright for what he perceives to be her lack of homemaking abilities.
Lewis
Hale: "Women are used to
worrying about trifles," the adjacent farmer remarks after entering the
Wright farmhouse to inquire about obtaining a telephone and seeing a strangled
guy and a woman acting quite strangely.
Mrs.
Hale: Lewis Hale's wife is more
physically fit than Mrs. Peters, and she dislikes how Henderson in particular
treats her with self-righteousness because she is a woman and works in the
home. She feels sorry for Mrs. Wright because she recalls Mrs. Wright as a
young Minnie Foster.
John
Wright: He was a local farmer who was
widely regarded as a decent and obedient man, but he was also a hard man who
neglected his wife's happiness, paid little respect to her opinions, and
forbade her from singing.
Mrs.
Wright: Although she does not appear
in the play, Minnie Foster, the major suspect in her husband John Wright's
murder, asks Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale to fetch her a few little items from the
farmhouse.
The tone of the Play: Dark, Opinionated
Setting
and Historical Context: This is one
of those plays where the historical context and setting are crucial. Though
this was starting to change at the time the play was written, the ideal, proper
place for women had, for a long time, been the domestic sphere in America.
Symbols:
Trifles: The play's title alludes to the women's concerns,
which the men in the story dismiss as trifles. Trifles represent the
significance of the subjects and possessions that the women in the story are
concerned about because these concerns give the women the insight they need to
make decisions.
Canning
Jars of Fruit: The canning jars of a fruit stand in for Minnie's intense worry about her role as a wife and her
household duties. Minnie's worry is a result of the pressure society has put on
her as a woman and a wife, teaching her to be afraid of men's judgment if she
doesn't perform her expected role to their expectations.
The
Dirty Towel: The disarray of Minnie's
kitchen shows a distressed mind and that Minnie's act of killing her husband
was more emotional and dramatic than her demeanor suggests. This is one of many
out-of-place objects in Minnie's kitchen that lead George Henderson to accuse
her of being a poor housekeeper.
The
Quilt: The play ends with George
Henderson asking the woman how Minnie was going to finish the quilt. Mrs.
Hale's certainty that she was going to "knot it" symbolizes the
women's certainty that Minnie killed her husband.
The Dead Bird: The strangled songbird that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters
find explains Minnie Wright's motivation for her crime, but it also serves as a
metaphor for John Wright's abusive treatment of his wife, who is represented by
the dead bird.
Summary:
While the women gather Minnie's
personal belongings, the men search the kitchen for evidence to use against
Minnie. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters also search the room. When Mrs. Hale and Mrs.
Peters discover a damaged bird cage and the corpse of Minnie's pet canary with
its neck broken, they feel sorry for Minnie because they realize that her husband
was abusive. To gather evidence against Minnie Wright, who has been
detained in connection with the murder of her husband, John Wright, sheriff
Henry Peters, and county attorney George Henderson visit the Wright home.
Lewis Hale, Minnie Wright's neighbor who was the first person except Minnie to
witness John's dead body, has been brought as a result. Mrs. Hale, Lewis's
wife, and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff's wife, have come to collect some of
Minnie's personal items to deliver to her in prison, and they are with the
three men.
The
Real Murder: John Hossack died in his
bed early on December 2, 1900, from two head blows from an axe. However, the
Iowa Supreme Court overturned the conviction, and a second trial ended in a
hung jury, allowing her to walk free.
Feminism
in Trifles: Women were not at the center
in the prior time even in America, and men used to blame women who would only
talk about trifles.