Week 8 "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell

“Trifles” by Susan Glaspell

       “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell was an interesting play. It was written in 1916. While reading the play, there was a mysterious element to it. It felt like a murder mystery. 

       As the story begins, the description of Mrs. Wright seemed strange. The author may have created this feeling in order to implicate Mrs. Wright murdered her husband John Wright. Often, in murder mysteries, the one that committed the murder appears oddly calm after wards. This is the feeling I got when reading Mrs. Wright’s description.

       As the play continues, the county attorney (Henderson), the sheriff (Peters), and the neighboring farmer (Hale) begin to look for clues as to what/who may have killed Mr. Wright. The two women in the play, Mrs. Peters (sheriff’s wife) and Mrs. Hale (neighbor’s wife) are also looking for clues. The men talk about Mrs. Wright’s housekeeping abilities and begin to think of her as a bad homemaker. They seem to miss all the clues and make fun of the women who seem to be more on track with what happened. 

       The women knew something was up when they first spotted a bad stitch in the quilt Mrs. Wright was making. They thought something must have made Mrs. Wright nervous all the sudden because all other stitches in the quilt looked perfect. When they found the broken cage and dead bird, even more suspicion became evident in the play. They also mentioned Mrs. Wright’s character before she married Mr. Wright and after. Her behavior had changed dramatically.

       While the men wasted time and made fun of the women for looking around and discussing quilting, the women began to piece together what may have happened. I felt the drama implicated through the women that it was not a happy marriage, Mr. Wright may have been abusive, and Mrs. Wright may have killed him. The possible motive could have been that he killed her bird, wrung its neck, and broke the cage. Maybe that was the last straw that caused the murder. As the men mad fun of the women for discussing Mrs. Wright’s worry of her fruit during this time, they women told the men that women worry about trifles. This is where the title of the story comes from.