Trifles, things that have no value…. To Susan Glaspell, this word signified the feelings men, in the farming areas of the Midwest , often had about their women. The women’s limited lives are the theme of her drama Trifles written in 1916. Trifles was produced for private subscribers using elements of history, class, culture, gender and archetypes to prove to her audience the plight of these women.

Susan was raised in the Midwest. She knew first hand how the farm women lived in their lonely, colorless, isolated world especially those that had no children. Her work explored the lives of these women in the non-commercial New Providence Theater. Where the drama she wrote dealt with real life unlike that of traditional theater (VCCSlitonline).

Trifles was written hurriedly and on demand Susan said when told her play would be performed at the theater, “I don’t know how to write a play. I had never studied it.” (Glaspell 1127). Trifles was first presented in 1916, the conflict enacted concerns the values men placed on women, and in this play, the women’s response to it as they lived their hard lives on the prairies of the mid west.

Historical Context This play was written in 1916, and was the real life story of a farm women who lived in Iowa. The writer depicts the farm house where the play takes place in the first scene “A gloomy kitchen, and left without having been put in order --unwashed pans” (Glaspell 1111). Mrs. Hale says she stayed away because “it weren’t cheerful.” (Glaspell 1118).

More telling is the way the men talk to and about the women The men criticize the way the kitchen is kept. Mrs. Hale says, “I’d hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticizing” (Glaspell 1114). The County Attorney says that Mrs. Wright “should have more on her mind than preserves.” Mr. Hale responds with, “Well women are used to worrying over trifles.” (Glaspell 1114)

The Class of the characters plays a part in this drama Mr. Wright is said, “to have little interest in what is wife wants” even though a party line phone wouldn’t cost very much. Mr. Hale states, “I didn’t know what his wife wanted made much difference.” (Glaspell 1112) and besides he is always close with his money. Mrs. Hale says on page 1115 while talking about Mrs. Wright, “I suppose she felt she couldn’t do her part, and then you don’t enjoy things when you feel shabby.”

Mrs. Wright says, Minnie was once a pretty lively young woman who liked to sing, but the culture she lived in stole it from her. Living on the prairie with few pleasures in life drained the joy from her much as it did the other women. Mrs. Hale says, “we all know the same kinds of things as women, but we don’t talk about them. I should have visited her more” ( Glaspell 1120). On page 1118 of the drama Mrs. Hales says, No children makes less work-but it makes a quiet house and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come in. Mrs. Peters says she knows what stillness is she lost a baby once when it was two years old ( Glaspell 1120)

Mr. Wright was described by Mrs. Hale on page 1118 as, She was kind of like a bird herself real sweet and pretty, timid and fluttery, my how she changed Mr. Wright was described by Mrs. Hale on page 1118 as, “I guess he paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Like a raw wind that gets to the bone.” “The pressure of life had taken its toll on Minnie, she is repeatedly described as small and frail, like a bird that doesn’t sing.”

Gender differences is what this play is all about. In fact, because the men think that Minnie is frail and in this case only interested in her preserves, how could she have the cunning and the passion to kill a man? The women enter the drama after the men walk in signifying their lesser importance, the men leave the kitchen because it only has kitchen things. While they are at first suspicious that Minnie did not hear her husband being strangled, they can’t find any evidence that she killed him and besides she is only a woman

Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale accidentally discover the truth They have come to the farm house to gather clothing for Mrs. Wright who is in jail. This is a job no man could do. They gather up some quilt pieces for her to continue making her quilt. The men ask them what they are talking about and the women tell them they are wondering how Mrs. Wright planned to finish the patches: quilt them or knot them This is the first time the word knot has been used and introduces the possibility to the reader that Minnie did tie the knot that killed her husband.

The women discover the bird cage and dead bird while looking for an apron The women decide that Minnie must have bought a canary from a peddler who was in the area. Mr. Wright would not have liked the singing of the bird. So when they find the dead bird in a small silk box, while looking for sewing scissors, they decide that Minnie did kill her husband in retaliation for killing her bird. Her bird who had become her only source of beauty, song and life.

The women decide that men or least this man caused his own death. The women decide to say nothing about their discoveries. After all they are not sure. Mrs. Hale says on page 1120, “I wish you’d seen Minnie when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang. I should have come to visit her. That was a crime/ Who’s going to punish that?” Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters take the power away from the men. While the men are looking for big things, the women find the answer in Trifles and in their own guilt.

Trifles is an archetype of many pieces of literature Men are frequently described and shown as the individuals in charge; yet, it is often the woman who seems to be powerless who takes away the male power and get what she wants. 1,000 ships were launched for Helen of Troy, and Macbeth turns to murder to please his wife. This farm wife who is described as a bird, and is described as pleating her apron over and over again, got what she wanted: revenge for the loss not just of the bird, but her own life.

Glaspell is a pioneer in real life drama, she starts her play after the murder has taken place, and doesn’t convict the murder, and writes her story in a one Act Play Instead of telling the entire tale, as most murder mysteries are told, this writer used exposition to explain how and when the murder occurred. It is not till the end of the play that the audience knows who did the killing, and in the end the characters decide that the victim deserved to die. These facts make for a very unique drama that is appealing even today. (VCCSlitonline.edu.us)

Symbols Cherry Preserves – The men have no understanding of how hard it is to can. They don’t understand the beauty of the fruit and that it was the once colorful thing in Minnie’s dull, dreary life Apron- Farm women always wore aprons. They used them to cover their dresses. Few had many more than one or two dresses so they need to be cared for. The apron symbolized their role in the family as the one who prepared the food and/or the mother image. Folding and pleating her Apron – Minnie is described after the murder as sitting in her rocking chair, pleating and repeating her apron. This is a symbol of her timid- ness, maybe even lack of mentality

Symbols Canary – The bird came to represent Minnie locked up in its cage as she was locked up in her life. The bird sang and was colorful. It was something to make her life meaningful and her husband killed it. Cat – The women discuss the possibility of the cat killing the bird. Mrs. Hale says Minnie did not like cats. The connotation is that women are like cats. They can kill and leave

Symbols Patch work quilts were what farm women did to show some creativity. They cut up old clothes and make quilts with them. They either sewed them together called quilting or knotted them together called knotting. The knotting symbolizes the murder weapon, the noose which had to be knotted.

Symbols The bird was wrapped in a piece of silk and placed in a decorative box. Minnie was talking about her own life. That she wanted to be dead and buried in a beautiful box. This symbolizes the beauty she did not have in life, but she would have in death.

The drama was an experiment in drama It showed that drama can deal with life’s problems and joys. That life is not always pleasure and humor, but is sometimes painful and ugly. Susan Glaspell was one of the first artists of her era who was willing to talk about the life of other women. She was willing to write about their heart ache and pain. She was willing to tell all who came to see her work, that women where human beings who needed to grow and expand their lives just as men did.

Citations Kennedy, X.J. and Gioia, Dana. Literature, Eleventh ed.: New York: Longman, 2009. Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Literature, X. Kennedy and Dana Gioia, New York: Longman, 2009. Virginia Community College, Literature On Line, 2005. 25 Aug. 2009. http://vcccliteratureonline.edu.usa/trifles/.