The 19th century was full of prominent female literary figures, Glaspell among them, and it is Trifles that marks her official jump from novelist to playwright. Based on an actual murder case Glaspell covered while working as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News, Trifles was the result of a demand by George Cram Cook that she write the next show put up by the Provincetown Players. Having already the idea for a short story, the murder of the local farmer unfolded in 10 days to become one of the most analyzed one acts of its time and the present.
Trifles Synopsis: Trifles is a short, one act play about a group of five that come to a farm house to investigate the murder of a local man, John Wright. His wife, Minnie, has already been taken into custody as a suspect. The characters are: Henry Peters (the sheriff), George Henderson (prosecuting attorney), Lewis Hale (a neighbor), Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale. The scene is set in a “bleak, untidy” kitchen and it is snowing outside. “While the men explore primarily offstage sites for evidence, the women remain onstage and uncover a number of details that not only may be evidence of a motive for murder but that also link Minnie’s life to theirs and profoundly alter their perspectives on the suspect and the crime.”
The Many Levels of Trifles:
1) The gulf between male and female perceptions of justice (i.e. law VS empathy.)
a. Trifles is said to state a “redefinition of crime.” A switch from the typical male to female mode of judgment. There is a jump by the women in the scene from the usual agreement to patriarchal law to internal perception through empathy. They rebel against the norm by consciously and subconsciously balking at the law. One of the women is the sheriff’s wife, and the jump much more poignant.
b. “Distance between the laws of the kitchen and the outside world increases…the women see a fair trial is not possible for Minnie Foster.”
2) Assigned gender roles.
a. Seen as “along for the ride” the women are obviously little more than a distraction by the men of Trifles, yet in truth they are central to the play and a main focus. During the long periods of time that the men leave the kitchen, the women make the connections between what is around them and what happened that fateful night John Wright was murdered. As time goes on, law and justice take on a new definition to the women. Most of the time, this re-shaping happens subconsciously.
b. Without knowing it, the women gain more and more power as they empathize more and more with Minnie. This culminates at the end of the one act, whereupon the men enter from outside the kitchen one last time, preparing to leave and silently the women conceal the dead canary they have found. The canary is a symbol of the straw that broke Minnie (to the women) and could be strong evidence for the men that Minnie was violent.
3) The “Invisible Woman” technique
a. It is said that using a protagonist rarely, if ever, seen draws the focus tighter around said protagonist. Whether that was Glaspell’s intention or not, the fact that the audience never sees Minnie is a very strong choice for a playwright and leaves much interpretation for an audience. Being the only large deviation from the norm of a play, the unseen Minnie is said to have become a “surrogate for all the invisible women in Glaspell’s plays.” Her absent nature also is said to reinforce the absentee nature of her character. Minnie was absent from the community, once so full of life and rarely seen since her marriage to John, and she was absent to her husband. It is meant to be seen through Mrs. Hale’s and Mrs. Peter’s dialogue, that Minnie Wright was disappearing from the world alone in a farmhouse and just couldn’t bear it.
TRIFLES Facts:
• Written in 1916 by Susan Glaspell while staying in Greenwich Village.
• Written in 10 days.
• In its first production by the Provincetown Players, Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook played the roles of Mr. and Mrs. Hale.
• Later re-written as a short-story, A Jury of Her Peers.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.