Friday, March 30, 2012
Question of the Week (3/30/12)
Write a short commentary of the play "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell. Be sure to reference at least 4 of the major images discussed in class and analyze them thoroughly. This is your last blog post for quarter 3. No late posts will be given partial credit. Post your thoughtful commentary and a response to another classmate's commentary by 3 p.m. on Tuesday. Happy posting!
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“Trifles” is about the investigation of a murder where the investigators have everything to pin it on the wife except a motive. The investigative group consists of 3 men and 2 women, the men go looking for large obvious motives while the women begin looking at the wife’s personal things to figure out what happened in her personal life. They find various things that trigger memories of how the wife used to be, such as jam jars in the cabinet, a bird, and an unfinished quilt, all of which represent in some way the break down of the wife’s mental state up to the point that she killed her husband. In the opening of the play we see a room that is left in a state of disorder. The bread is out, dishes unwashed and the dirty towel. At one point in the play the women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale reminisce about how organized the wife, Mrs. Wright, had always been. This is shows how far Mrs. Wright fell from her normal level of sanity, represented in the final mess that was then found. Even someone who wasn’t as organized as her would not have left the bread out and probably wouldn’t have left the dishes. Another sign of this deterioration was an unfinished quilt. The quilt was sowed by hand in neat little stitches but near where she had left off Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale notice that the stitches become sloppy. Their main proof of her motive is the dead bird that they find. They remember that Mr. Wright was a nasty man and they think he killed the bird. The bird represents Mrs. Wright because she used to be young, pretty, lively and would sing. She had put it in a pretty box, probably meaning that she felt connected to it. Metaphorically her husband killed her spirit and literally killed the bird. Her reason for murder would have been because her husband was a mean, possibly abusive man and she needed an escape. However, at the same time of her murdering her husband she tries to hold onto reality. This is shown by her worrying about the jam jars in the cupboard. Almost all the jars have broken because of the cold and Mrs. Wright must have known that (she mentioned it in the beginning) but she still asked about them. It shows that she was probably in shock after the killing but still tried to act like everything was normal. The play ends with the women hiding the evidence from the men because they sympathize with Mrs. Wright. By hiding the motive the murder can’t be pinned on Mrs. Wright and the women realize that she must have been driven to murder him, not just on an impulse.
ReplyDeleteSara, you seem to have gotten a lot out of the story. Your observations are spot on and have made me look at the story in a different manner that I have ever before. I really love how you brought up the transition in Mrs. Wright's organization. Great job!
DeleteTrifles is a good ol' mystery. With a strangled husband and a crazy wife, this story has all of the perfect pieces to be an original "who-done-it?". Wrapped within the story is a tale of gender role, deception, payback, and loneliness. I feel that gender roles come out almost in the very beginning. Even in the italics that set the scene it says "[The women] stand close together near the door." Glaspell makes sure to make it clear that these ladies are sticking together. As we all read, throughout the play the women stick together and inadvertently plan to make sure Mrs. Wright is proven innocent by hiding the dead canary. This is another image we see, it is one of deception. Even though Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are married to people in law enforcement, and in turn are " married to the law" as the county attorney states. But they choose to defy that paradigm and do not tell them about the dead bird. This leads directly into the third image of payback. Payback shows up clearly in this 1916 work. The ladies choose not to tell the men because the men were very mean to them, being sexist and treated the ladies as small-minded twits that don't do anything except "worry over trifles" as Mr. Hale stated. Another instance where we see payback is when Mrs. Wright murders her husband for killing the canary. Pay back is a… well you know. Another image is loneliness, which plays a key role in the story. In my mind, Mrs. Wright would have not committed any of her crimes if it wasn’t for loneness. Here jars of fruit signifies that. All of her jars were broken, just like her. Mrs. Wright’s life was just like those jars of fruit, disheveled and sad. Glaspell did a great job writing a truly wonderful mystery, but she did an even better job at weaving key images into the story to enhance the impact on the audience.
ReplyDeleteMatt,
DeleteYou did an excellent job summarizing the events and ideas that can be drawn from this play. In particular, I liked when you said, "All of her jars were broken, just like her." That was a very powerful and meaningful statement.
Matthew, Gorgeous,
DeleteI could not agree more. Especially on loneliness and payback. I would be mad if these men thought I couldn't think. I would totally lie to them. It really knows how incredibally sexist people were. I liked how you put it; "Small-minded twits", is truly what the men thought of the women, and frankly, that's what the men were being, was small minded twits. I also agree with Jared, there was a lot of power in the statement "All of her jars were broken, just like her."
A woman’s world, full of ‘trifles’, the small details that summed, form the whole of our life. A woman’s world, a smaller sphere within the sphere of men, with tangents necessary one into the other. The men in this story laugh at the ways of women, their ‘trifles’, their worrying about the frozen fruit, their mocking of Minnie Foster’s slovenly ways, the mess left behind. Yet the women feel so sorry that the men see this woman’s home exposed in such disarray, snooping about while she cannot explain to them why it is not all set up nice. The women find small details of an unhappy life that lead them to a fine motive for killing her husband, another small trifle, a bird with a wrung neck, her beloved song bird that broke the silence in this cold bitter place with no children even to warm it. For a woman who suffered too much silence, a woman who once was a girl who sang and sat prettily. But her husband snuffed that right out of her. One of the women in the play, Mrs. Hale said something so right it sang to me: “I might have known she needed help! I know how things can be- for women. I tell you, it’s queer, Mrs Peters. We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things- it’s all just a different kind of the same thing.” And this is so sadly true, we are all living through different shades of the same human suffering that is everywhere, and if it were shared more, it would be diluted and sometimes disappear, if only for a time.
ReplyDeleteThe women decide to leave Minnie Foster with the idea that her fruit is safe, all that summer work did not go wasted. They would bring her quilting to her, and most of all, they would hide the dead bird. Because that was all the men needed to find, to find motive enough to have a jury sentence her. The women stick together, finding solace maybe after not being more of her friend, and so they help her now. The men, laughing at their quick wit over whether she was going to quilt it or knot it. They don’t have a clue. Utterly clueless.
I thought it was a very interesting comment. I really enjoyed the fact the related back to the title so much and use that to be the basis of your ideas. One thing that I would think about is that I found it a little challenging to grasp the full scope of your ideas because although your comment is very well worded it a little artsy and kind of vague but overall very good.
DeleteThree men and two women are at the scene of a murder. They are investigating a house that was left in poor shape, almost as if the occupants had rapidly left in the middle of doing their household work. This acts as a great support to the hypothesis stating that Ms. Wright was the murderer. The women investigating are the wives of the men,the sheriff and the state's attorney. However there is a conflict between the two sexes. The men feel superior to the women and act as if they can do everything on their own. The women respond by keeping some of their findings/discoveries to themselves. For instance, they find a strangled bird, but hide that from the men. The men had previously been rude and sexist towards the women. Aside from the house left in a disorganized manner and the dead bird, the last piece of the quilt had been sewn in an unusual way. It boldly stood out from the rest of the pieces. Perhaps Mrs. Wright was nervous or guilty feeling and couldn't focus enough on her quilt work. Lastly, the broken jars that were left out triggered suspicion among the investigation team. Again, it seemed as if Mrs. Wright had run out of time or was being rushed. She was known to be organized but must have been distraught after her wrongdoing. All in all, the messy house, bird, quilt and jars were all signs of something wrong. This was out of the ordinary because Mrs. Wright was known to be neat and organized.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this analysis and enjoyed the was you compared the feelings of the men and women investigators. I also liked how to related the things that the women found to how this might point toward Mrs. Wright as the murderer.
DeleteSo I think we all know the this play strongly highlights the sexism men have toward women. one place where I believe this is highlighted especially is how the men treat the women's discoveries as inferior. For example when they find the spot on the quilt which is soon poorly where the rest of the quilt is sewn properly. The women delve into the emotion that might have been behind such an act where the men don't see it as anything extraordinary. The next thing that pops out to me is not necessarily what the men think what they say about what the jury thanks. It seems clear that if given even a small provocation the jury would convict a woman of whatever crime was presented just because she was a woman. Another thing that strikes me that less lends itself to how sexist men are but more to how women can be independent is when the sheriff's wife takes the bird without showing her husband. This is especially interesting when you put next the line "she must be married to a law". It shows how women give enough reason can make independent choices without the help of a husband. The final point I'd like to point out is how non-of the women make an open statement about sexism in the play. This is interesting because you can't pin sexism on a single character instead you have to blame it on the environment that the characters are in. By setting up the play this way it makes us play more into a call to action. It shows how much is one person put the entire community has a biased against women.
ReplyDeleteTrifles is a story of the values of men versus the values of women. The men in this story value the big pictures, and the bigger things in life, but for the women, it's the little things that count for them, and they value the little things more. The men think it's ridiculous that Mrs. Hale & Mrs. Peters are so worried about jars of fruit, but making these jars is a womens job, and Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale know the kind of work being put into these jars of fruit, and them breaking is sad for them. My first image, is the jars of fruit. Mrs. Wright was right in her mind at one point, but the timing of the broken jars is quite coincidental to the breaking point of Mrs. Wright. The jars broke when she broke. My next image is the birdcage. This bird cage is found empty by one of the ladies, and the door of it is broken, as if it was brutally handled. This bird cage once held a singing canary, but the canary was killed. Mrs. Wright was compared to a song bird in the story, and it seams, stifled before her time. My third image is the dead canary. This yellow bird symbolizes Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Wright used to sing in the choir, and was even compared to a song bird throughout the play not only from her singing, but how she acted. That was when she was Minnie Foster, a single woman. When she got married, John Wright obviously changed her, and stifled her song bird soul, which is why she bought the bird. But the bird irritated Mr. Wright, and he killed the bird, and then she killed him. My fourth and final image is the basket. The basket hold Mrs. Wrights sewing and quilting materials. Within these, however, lies an ornate box, and the dead canary inside. The ladies found the dead bird, which lead to their conclusion about Mrs. Wrights motive, and hid it from the men. They lied because of the mens bias against their "trifles". The sexism against the women caused them to lie about the basket and its contents. The men could have had a motive, if they had only thought higher of the women, and didn't make fun of their trifles.
ReplyDeleteThe play trifles is a very early example of feminist drama. The three men and two women investigate a murder it is clear that the women have an edge over the men when they are looking for small clues, and manage to piece together means and motive. The motive was that john Wright snapped the neck of the small bird that Mrs. Wright kept. In the play this may have symbolized Mrs. Wrights freedom of expression and happiness. The means was that one of the quilts she was making by knotting it, and John was murdered with a noose, the knotted quilt implies that Mrs. Wright knew how to make the murder weapon. Part of the quilt stitching was also very sloppy which was symbolic for the falling apart of Mrs. Wright, as Mr. Wright became more and more aggressive and mean.
ReplyDeleteIn the Kitchen Mrs. Wrights jars of preserves had frozen due to the lack of warmth in the house, all but one had frozen. The frozen jars are symbolic for Mrs. Wright’s spirit, which had slowly been encased in ice by her husband’s suppression. The single jar that was not frozen was the part of her life in which she still have enough life to murder her tormentor.
I think the play "trifles" is a very deep piece of play, I didn't notice that it is about men, women and stereotypes until the class discussed about it. It focuses on little details, which tells us a lot by symbolizing or using metaphor. In fact, I don't even know what is trifles until now, but that may be my lack of knowledge and irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteSo, the play is about a sherif, his wife, a county attorney, Hale and Ms Peters investigating on a murderer. Now here is the first piece trying to tell us about stereotypes of men and women. The guys sticked together and investigates like detectives, while women discussed about little, irrelevant things. I actually thought this is a play which is about detective, like Sherlock Holmes, which is still irrelevant. Going on, now the play mentioned a bird and strangely knitted piece of thing. The bird symbolizes the dead man's wife's happiness, and the strangely knitted piece of thingy tells us that the dead man's wife is nervous. finally, the girls talked about quilt or knot the strangely piece of thing. As far as I was acknowledged from the class, it was a stereotype of women's topic or talking about tiny, irrelevant things, trifles. But I still have no idea why is the story end up by saying knot it. Overall, I think the play is certainly deep enough to not having me to understand its meanings(by myself).
i think this is a very honest post. in that you state that your not totally sure about all of the importance it holds though you are indeed trying to grasp it. At the end of the story i believe what they mean is that a strange knot was used to kill the man and the men are talking about the quilt.
DeleteIn "Trifles", 3 men have come to a house to investigate a murder. Along with them are two women, wives of two of the men. As the men are investigating for clues to find out who did it and if the murderer was the wife, the women are in the kitchen. While the women are in the kitchen, they begin discussing the wife of the victim. They talk about how she used to be beautiful and lively. They talk about how much she changed when she got married to John Wright (the victim). While they are discussing these things they find something very odd. They find a piece of quilt which is done very strangely near the end. The way the play describes it it makes me think that maybe after the wife murdered her husband she was not able to focus and she couldn't concentrate on her sewing. Which is very understandable. I don't remember who brought it up but it sounds like a good theory that the cabin that was portrayed on the quilt is something like the happy home that Mrs. Wright was lacking. Another item the women find is an empty bird cage. I think the cage has a lot to do with the story by itself. I think that the fact that it is empty shows that the bird was forcefully taken from it's home, in which it could fly and sing as it liked. When the women find the bird itself, with neck broken, it symbolizes Mrs. Wright and how her happy life and singing was taken away from her husband, guessing that the husband killed the bird himself. The women do not show these things to the men, holding evidence that could be a motive for the wife having killed her husband. Another thing we talked about in class was about how the men make fun of the women for caring about whether Mrs. Wright knotted or sewed the quilt. This would be aggravating to me too, if someone was making fun of me for worrying about something they think is so little an issue. I think this is maybe the reason they decided not to show the men, because they wouldn't understand how this made Mrs. Wright feel and wouldn't sympathize with her.
ReplyDeleteReply to Sara (since I can't seem to get the "Reply" button to work): I definitely agree with you about her husband being possibly abusive. I like your addition about the box the bird was put into, and the connection you made. Great connection to the jars of jam! I totally forgot about those. But it does make a lot of sense when you said "trying to hold onto reality". Nice job!
ReplyDeleteThis story was very much a product of it’s time, the Virginia Woolfe, “A room of one’s own” sort of early feminism. The feeling of the women being marginalized pervaded the play, and was one of the driving forces in the plot.
ReplyDeleteOne of the interesting things in the play was how the images were used to characterize Mrs. Wright. We get a short picture of her from Mr Hale, but her life, personality, and motives really come through when the two women are poking around the house. Things like the carefully preserved jars of fruit, and the finished section of the quilt hint at her being a careful, organized woman, where the dead bird, unraveled quilt, and recent mess show her mental breakdown.
Overall, I found it interesting how the house was used to built up the character of Mrs. Right, even though she never even appears in the play. It’s a clever stylistic choice, and I think it’s much more effective than just having a conversation with her would have been.
I think that we all got the point of the play having a strong feminist feel, especially after discussing it during class. I agree that the images were strong and helped characterize Mrs. WRight. I feel like she does appear in the play. I didn't realize that she didn't until you mentioned it because her personality and persona was portrayed so well.
Delete“Trifles” is a one-act play that has many layers, depending if you want to read into it or not. The top layer is that there has been a murder committed in the Wright house. Mr. wright has been found dead, killed in his sleep and according to Mrs. Wright she did not notice a thing because she “sleeps sound”. So Mrs. Wright is taken to a nice homey jail cell while three men and two women enter her house looking for evidence. The men are looking for a motive while the women are trying to get some of Mrs. Wright’s things to make her feel “better”. While in the Wright’s house the women remember how Mrs. Wright behaved before she was married to Mr. Wright. How she was always full of joy and how she loved to sing, that she was indeed a free sprit. The women look around the house and find it to be in shambles with bread not in the proper place, broken jars of fruit(her slipping into a depression) and just all around not tended to. Though the men just write it off the women know that Mrs. Wright was not happy. Then they find the dead canary. The dead bird (represents her freedom) must have been the breaking point for Mrs. Wright the women conclude. so knowing why Mrs. Wright kill Mr. Wright you would expect the women to tell the men who are still looking for motive BUT you would be wrong because IF you go down a layer you would see that the men think what the women do is pointless and has no real meaning. That what women deal with are the “little things” or “trifles”. So the women do not plan on telling the men for one simple reason; they will not understand.
ReplyDeleteThe story "Trifles" is about a woman named Mrs. Wright who is being convicted for killing her husband. In this story there are three male detectives and two of those men have wives. Mrs. Peters being one and Mrs. Hale being the other, who also had come to the house. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale stay down stairs while the men go and check out the crime seen up stairs. The men find all they need to prove that Mrs. Wright killed her husband but one main thing they were missing was her motive for killing him. The women down stairs found things that would have triggered Mrs. Wright in to depression and even to the point of killing someone (the someone would be her husband).
ReplyDeleteThe women found Mrs. Wright's fruit jars broken do to the cold and not well taken care of. The women remember how Msr. Wright used to be. She was caring, pretty, nice, and always kept her house clean and neat. Her house was not clean or neat. Mrs. Hale knew something was going on between Mrs. Wright and her husband.
They also found a quilt that Mrs. Wright was piecing, it was a log cabin pattern. Towards the end of one of the ones she was working on the sewing was all over the place all the others were nice and neat. I think that was around the time she started mentally breaking down.
One other main thing they found was a dead bird rapped inside of a piece of silk. They think that Mrs. Wright was going to bury it. Also that its neck had been wrung just like her husbands. The bird was a symbol of Mrs. Wrights beauty, and her lovely voice when she used to sing. When her husband killed that bird it pretty much just killed her. Which set her off, in which was the motive she had for killing her husband.
Over all I thought it was a great story and mystery it really got the reader to engage in the story and also made you have to go back and pick out the minor details and really think and piece the whole story together.
"Trifles" is about a couple of men trying to solve a murder and their wives who come along. Through the way the men and women are portrayed and discuss the murder we are shown differences between men and women. The play is clearly meant as a feminist play that empowers women. The basic premise is that the men look at all of the modes of murder and everything obvious while they laugh at the women who are discussing things that seem very insignificant, the "trifles." The men think that it is funny that the women are so caught up in a square on Mrs. Wright's quilt that is not well sewn. The men do not think that this is important at all but the square actually helps prove Mrs. Wright's guilt by how she might feel after she killed her husband. On a similar note, the condition of her kitchen and how well it has been taken care of also shows how the events in the house may have affected her ability to keep things clean and care for the house. In addition they are very concerned about the canary. The men find it to be of little importance but the death of the canary seems to be ultimitely what set Mrs. Wright off and became her motive. While the men may have been able to find a lot of evidence pointing to Mrs. Wright being the killer they ultimately would not be able to convict her without the help of the women who noticed the trifles and the unimportant things, making the point that women are just as important as men.
ReplyDeleteI like how you pointed out the part about how the women could see that Mrs. Wright may have felt guilty because of her poorly sewn quilt a man would never pick up on something like that. I also like how you showed the comparison of her clean and them dirty kitchen after Mr. Wrights death.
DeleteIn the play "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell the main conflict is between the three men and the three women that are trying to figure out a murder. The men are sexist and don't trust the women with anything. They have no faith that the women could help them, but really the women are making a lot more progress in the investigation than the men are. The women figure out the motive for the murder but decide not to tell the men because, women need to stick together and stand up for one another. The dead canary is one of the major images that follows through the play, it is so important because it provides them with a motive. The bird is found wrapped in a cloth with a broken neck. To Mrs. Wright the bird represented her happiness and reminds her of herself and how she loved to sing. The women conclude that Mr. Wright must have killed the bird which sent Mrs. Wright over the edge and led her to murder him. Three more important image are the glass jars that Mrs Wright is so worried about, the unfinished quilt that the women obsess over how it was made, and the rope that was found around Mr. Wrights neck. The women take what seem to be such small details to the men and end up cracking the case. This goes to show how you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.
ReplyDelete