Susan Glaspell's "trifles"

Susan Glaspell's "Trifles"

Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, demonstrates the theme of opposing roles between men and women. It is inflated by the setting of a lonely farm in the remote Midwest. This play displays how different the roles between men and women were carried out, and how women were treated and expected to act. During this time period of the late 19th century to early 20th century, women became more independent and wanted to be equal to men instead of inferior to them. Whether using a feminist criticism, reader-response criticism or formalism, the interpretation of the themes in this play can vary depending on which approach the reader is taking.

In "Trifles", we can use all three of these literary criticisms to explore themes within. Feminist criticism's goal is to observe and challenge women's roles in a text. The importance of the women's capabilities in a text are accentuated from this approach and in the end favorable above males. This is a useful approach in a play such as "Trifles" because of the way policemen treated their wives at the crime scene. Reader-response criticism is the result of a direct transaction between the text and the reader. Here a reader can incorporate prior knowledge into the text to make sense of it and inevitably demonstrate their personal feelings towards a piece of work. Lastly, formalism is where a reader interprets literary texts by relating them to extrinsic issues by focusing on plot, setting, characters, symbolism, etc.

Trifles, takes place in the late 1880s to early 1900s on a Midwestern farm in a small town. The play is about a woman named Minnie Wright who is a suspect in her husband's murder. The police begin to search through the Wright home looking for evidence to convict Mrs. Wright. While the police are searching, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter, the policemen's wives, are commenting on the house and the Wright's lives. The men make fun of what the women are talking about, belittling what they are saying and what they are thinking about. From a feminist criticism, the reader gets the sense that the men in the play have superiority over the women in more aspects than one. Leaving the women in the kitchen while the men go investigate upstairs allows the reader to see what the women are actually accomplishing with their "nonsense" in the kitchen. Feminist outlooks in this case actually helped aid evidence in the crime they were investigating:

Sheriff: Nothing here but kitchen things.

County Attorney: (Opens the door of a cupboard closet. Gets up on a chair and looks on a shelf. Pulls his hand away sticky) Here's a nice mess. (The women draw nearer)

Mrs. Peters: Oh, her fruit; it did freeze. (To County Attorney) She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire'd go out and her jars would break.

Sheriff: Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worrying about her preserves.

The unkempt kitchen of Mrs. Wright holds great significance when looked at from a feminist view point because it mirrored her chaotic and unkempt life. Details that seem minor to someone taking a reader-response or formalist approach, are in fact quite important to the outcome of this play. A reader-response approach would allow the reader to take the kitchen for exactly what it is and nothing more... a mess. By taking things one step further and questioning what the text is putting out there, we can see a formalist approach. Formalism allows the reader to decode what the symbols in a text are pointing out. Going beyond observing objects such as the frozen preserves, the unfinished knit and the bread left out of the box, formalists question what the significance of each object really is.

While the police are searching for evidence to convict Mrs. Wright, the two women find a dead bird in her sewing kit. The bird has been strangled to death with a rope, which is mysteriously the same way Mr. Wright had died. The women discover the truth about what happened to Mr. Wright by observing the Wright's home life. The two women conclude that Mrs. Wright was a lonely woman due to Mr. Wright's cold and impersonal manner and the fact that she had no children. The women believe that she bought a canary to keep her company, but Mr. Wright strangled it because of his cold nature. They believe this is what made Mrs. Wright murder her husband. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter hide the bird from the police to protect Mrs. Wright so she cannot be convicted.

Feminist criticism would see this as an example of empowerment by women because they are protecting Mrs. Wright, something that she was unable to do herself when it came to her husband. When considering all things a stable woman portrays, the women easily concluded the unsteadiness of Mrs. And Mr. Wright's marriage and knew she indeed did commit the crime of killing her husband. Reader-response critics would see this as hard evidence that Mrs. Wright is guilty. All of the signs point in her direction and she should be convicted for the crime. There is less sympathy in this approach than a feminist approach because the reader solely focuses on the relationship between the text and themselves. This cut and dry method sticks with the facts, rather than decoding what may have caused certain things to happen. Formalists would see this as evidence that Mrs. Wright is guilty, but at the same time her motives would be understood because all of the symbols the evidence portrays are ones that intrigues a formalist to understand the play in-depth rather than in passing. The Formalists will understand her motives for the murder because of all the metaphors Glaspell sets up throughout the play.

Trifles, is the perfect example of what life was like in the 19th and 20th century. It was a feminist play written to go against