Mystery in “Trifles” Play by Susan Glaspell

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Background
Discussion
Conclusion
Work Cited

Introduction

“Trifles”, the story by Susan Glaspell is a murder mystery which does not try to hide the murderer, but attempts to conceal the motive of the murder. It creates a sympathetic situation for the lady, Mrs. Wright, who murdered her own husband rather than to create any hatred against her. The persons who discover the motive of the murder are also ladies and not anyone actively involved in the solution of the murder case. But the gentlemen who are actually supposed to find out the motive and solve the case are not able to succeed in reaching the depth of the matter, as they lack the sympathetic view which led the ladies to see seemingly minute unimportant things and reach the root of the incident. This is a case of difference of perspective and gender difference while finding a solution to a given problem.

Background

The story depicts the “queer” behavior of Mrs. Wright, who is charged with the murder of her own husband by strangling him with a rope around his neck. She was found “rockin’ back and forth” on a rocker and holding an Apron in her hands and “kind of–pleating it” when Mr. Hale came in to meet Mr. John Wright, Mrs. Wright’s husband. Surprisingly Mrs. Wright declared that her husband was lying upstairs but would not see anyone because he was dead. On being asked how he died, Mrs. Wright said “He died of a rope around his neck“. She was peculiarly calm while saying this and did not show any excitement even when the she learnt that the police was being called. She was charged with the murder of John Wright as there were no possibilities of any outsider doing the crime.

Discussion

The story represents a clear division between the way of thinking of the male characters, which is the Sheriff, the County Attorney and the neighboring farmer Mr. Hale and the women, that is the wife of the Sheriff Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, wife of Mr. Hale. The County Attorney, Mr. Henderson was in particular very “sarcastic” of the “gloomy” atmosphere of the house, specially the kitchen. He criticized Mrs. Wright as “Not much of a housekeeper” as the kitchen was full of signs of unfinished work. But Mrs. Hale did not agree with him. She said she had not entered this house for over a year as the Wrights’ house “never seemed a very cheerful place”, but she backed Mrs. Wright by saying that there is a “great deal of work to be done on a farm” and it is not fair “snooping around and criticizing” in her kitchen when she was not there.

Audience Male perspective

Mrs. Peters, the wife of the Sheriff was there to collect a “dress and a skirt”, a “pair of shoes” and some very insignificant or trivial things which Mrs. Wright wanted to have with her in the jail. Those things included the “apron” and “her little shawl that always hung behind the door”. Mrs. Wright also expressed worry about her “fruits” or “preserves” kept in the jars which actually broke due to the freezing temperature of night. This behavior of Mrs. Wright prompted Mr. Henderson and the Sheriff to laugh on her as they thought there was “something more serious than preserves to worry about”. Mr. Hale also thought that the “women are used to worrying over trifles”⁸. But, that way they missed out the feeling involved behind all those “trifle” things which could lead them to crack the case. This was formulated from the point of view of the male audience and the mode of analysis the male audience would use to solve the mystery.

Audience female perspective

But the women thought in a different way. Even Mrs. Peters, in spite of being the wife of the Sheriff and according to Mr. Henderson “married to the law”, was forced to think that some deep emotion was working at Mrs. Wright’s back of the mind when she tried to analyze the unusual behavior of Mrs. Wright. Not to talk of Mrs. Hale, who had seen the woman very closely since long and had a huge sympathy for everything she did. Mrs. Hale describes Mr. John Wright as a good man but along with it “close” and “hard”. According to her it was tough for Mrs. Wright to spend so many years with him. Both the women looked around the room with a sort of affection rather than any adverse feeling for a woman who had apparently killed her husband. Mrs. Hale remembered the days when Mrs. Wright used to be “Minnie Foster”, a young lady who used to “wear pretty clothes and be lively” and was one of the “town girls singing in the choir”. She was of opinion that living with a husband like John Wright and not having any children had completely changed “Minnie Foster” to a woman who “kept so much to herself”. She felt guilty for not visiting the Wrights for such a long time and not keeping track of what was going on in her neighborhood. As they went on discussing and reminiscing the present and past of Mrs. Wright’s life, they sort of generated more and more sympathy for her from the feminine perspective of the audience.

The women found out the pieces of a quilt which Mrs. Wright was sewing. They observed the pretty “Log Cabin” pattern partly sewed by her. One thing surprised both of them, that is part of the sewing was very good, but a portion was not at all good. Those made them think when a person can deviate from her quality sewing, whether it was tiredness or nervousness. An empty birdcage indicated that Mrs. Wright had a bird, probably a canary which was one of the canaries sold by a man cheap last year. For a lady who used sing for a choir it was not unlikely to have a singing bird with her, which could fill the vacuum in her life which arose from the absence of music and not having any children. But Mrs. Hale was skeptical of this as she knew John Wright, who was not a man who liked music at all. They wondered what could have happened to the bird as the Wrights did not have a cat; and thought the bird might have “got sick and died”. The ladies, out of affection for Mrs. Wright decided to give her the incomplete quilt which “might take up her mind”. But when they lifted up the pretty sewing box, they found the dead bird wrapped up in silk. The bird was brutally killed and “Somebody-wrung-its neck”. Mrs. Wright was about to “bury it in that pretty box” (Glaspell 1).

Now, everything became clear in front of the ladies and the female audience. The silent life of the childless lady was filled up by the bird after so many years of “nothing” and that too was apparently killed by John Wright bringing in a huge stillness again in her life. Mrs. Peters herself was aware how killing “stillness” could be as she had experienced it when her “first baby died–after he was two years old”. The ladies understood why John Wright was unable to wake up while the rope was slipped around his neck. It was a “crafty” act of killing. They knew if the County Attorney found out that bird, Mrs. Wright would be in deep trouble. Therefore they deliberately moved the box from its place and Mrs. Hale kept it in the pocket of her large coat.

Conclusion

The men audiences were unable to see these “trifles” which could help them solve the case. But the women, because they could unite themselves with Mrs. Wright in feelings, could reach to the depth of the case. They were sure that the lady, who worried so much for her preserves, wanted to have her shawl and apron even in the jail could not forgive her husband for killing her Canary and killed him quietly. The “trifles” were of so much importance to her, as there were no other interests left in her vacant life. “Trifles” as they might appear to others might not be as “trifles” for another person. They might lead to very intense emotional set backs in a person’s mind who consider them to be her life. If anybody tampers with them, it might lead to some extreme action like murder, as in the case depicted in the story “Trifles”. However, the main aspect remains in the paradox of differences in perspective in accordance to gender difference. The text suggests that due to difference in perspective, the women audiences are able to decipher the problem more easily than their male counterparts.

Work Cited

Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. VCU. 1916. www.vcu.edu.

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