Feminist Approach to Trifles Play by Susan Glaspell

Feminist Approach to

Trifles Play by Susan Glaspell

Introduction

Susan Glaspell was inspired to write Trifles from a real story while working as a news journalist for the Des Moines Daily News. The play is loosely based on the murder of John Hossack. Hossack's wife, Margaret, was accused of killing her husband. Glaspell set the play in early 1900s in America when women got way less respect from men and had to accept the gender roles that oppress them as something of a natural world order.. Using feminist approach, I try to point out oppression that women get from society which is an issue emphasized by the author, Glaspell, in Trifles play. I will analyze the story’s settings, themes, and symbols that have a relationship with feminism. The purpose of this analysis is to show that Susan Glaspell wrote Trifles as a work of social criticism that focuses on feminism.

Body

Summary

The sheriff, his wife, the county attorney, and the neighbors (Mr. and Mrs. Hale) enter the kitchen of the Wright household. Mr. Hale explains how he paid a visit to the house on the previous day. Once there, Mrs. Wright greeted him but behaved strangely. She eventually stated in a dull voice that her husband was upstairs, dead. The audience learns of John Wright’s murder through Mr. Hale’s exposition. He is the first, aside from Mrs. Wright, to discover the body. Mrs. Wright claimed that she was sound asleep while someone strangled her husband. It seems obvious to the male characters that she killed her husband, and she is been taken into custody as the prime suspect.

The men continually disparage the women for worrying about trifles instead of about the case, but Henderson allows the women to collect some items for Mrs. Wright, who is in custody, as long as he agrees that the objects are irrelevant to the case. While the men are investigating upstairs, Mrs. Hale reminisces about how happy Mrs. Wright had been before her marriage, and she regrets that she had not come to visit Mrs. Wright despite suspecting the unhappiness she had suffered as John Wright's wife. After looking around the room, the women discover a quilt and decide to bring it with them, although the men tease them for pondering about the quilt as they briefly enter the room before going to inspect the barn.

Meanwhile, the women discover an empty birdcage and eventually find the dead bird in a box in Mrs. Wright's sewing basket while they are searching for materials for the quilt. The bird has been strangled in the same manner as John Wright. Although Mrs. Peters is hesitant to flout the men, who are only following the law, she and Mrs. Hale decide to hide the evidence, and the men are unable to find any clinching evidence that will prevent her from being acquitted by a future jury - which will, the play implies, most likely prove sympathetic to women.

Analysis

The play establishes its themes in its opening moments. The play examines the relationships between husbands and wives, particularly a marriage that ended in murder. The setting, a messy kitchen, reflects this. The women stand together, highlighting both the way they have been pushed together by their male-dominated society but also, possibly, their loyalty to each other over their husbands, a topic explored in the play.

According to Shmoop Editorial Team (2008), the slew of sexist comments from the menfolk in the play represent the attitude of most men in the country. Those very men also fail to recognize their role in oppressing the women. As a result, the men belittle the women, mocking their character, intelligence, and subservience. The men laugh at the women for their emphasis on “trifles,” the small needs of housekeeping and comfort, even when those things are all the men allow the women to have. The men have not only oppressed the women, they also blame the women for enjoying the only things their oppression allows them to have.

The male characters are prejudiced in believing that nothing important can be discovered in areas of the house where Minnie spent most of her time. Their minds are clouded by prejudice and they disregard important clues as being mere "trifles" that women concern themselves with. They search the barn and the bedroom, places where men have dominance, rather than the kitchen, the only place where a woman would be in charge. One important line, spoken by the sheriff, says of the kitchen "Nothing here but kitchen things." This dismissal of the importance of a woman's life and the male reluctance to enter the "women's sphere" is key in the men's failure to discover the crucial evidence for the case. The most important evidence, the dead canary that the two women find, was hidden in Minnie's sewing basket.

The two women, having pieced together the murder, face the moral dilemma of telling the men about the motive or protecting Minnie, whom they see as a victim. Their choice raises questions about solidarity among women, the meaning of justice, and the role of women in society as a source of justice. As they recognize that Minnie was abused by her husband, the two women hiding the evidence against Minnie so that she will not be found guilty. The women side with Minnie and understand why she chose to kill her husband.

At the beginning of the play, the women too seem to accept the gender roles that oppress them as something of a natural world order. However, as the play progresses, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters come to recognize that, as women, they are being oppressed. In Minnie’s dead bird – a bird strangled by her husband – they see their own strangled hopes, perhaps even their own strangled lives. They become sympathetic to the difficulties Minnie Wright experienced after his marriage to John Wright since they also feel the same as fellow wife. In this joint recognition they find a connection between themselves and with other women, and begin, in their own quiet yet profound way, to rebel. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters decide to hide the evidence against Minnie from the men.

Conclusion

Trifles is seen as an example of early feminist drama. Gender is the central theme of the play. All three of the men are so focused on gathering evidence to use against Minnie in court that they ignore the signs ("trifles") that illuminate her emotional state leading up to the murder. Only the women are able to understand and sympathize with Minnie. The female characters find the body of a canary, with its neck wrung, killed in the same way as John Wright, thus leading them to the conclusion that Minnie was the murderer. Clearly, the wife is represented by the caged bird, a common symbol of women's roles in society and a symbol of lost freedom. Its cage, broken during one of John Wright's rages, is symbolic of Minnie's marriage, which traps her with a man she doesn't love in a farmhouse that's isolated from the community. The plot concludes with the two women hiding the evidence against Minnie.

Author:

Arum Ratnaning Ratri

2211416050

English Literature, 2016

Universitas Negeri Semarang

For subject:

Drama Analysis (407)