Trifles: Murder and Mrs. Hale

Susan Glaspells one act play Trifles is a clever tale which highlights the way in which wo manpower were dismissed in the archean twentieth century and perhaps in some ways assuage today. Glaspell uses the scene of a terrible crime to engage the audience and therefore deliver her social message. This play is mostly round the way in which wo custody in her day were ignored. The play takes place in a leaven house in the Midwest during the present day, roughly 1916. Mr. Henderson, a county attorney, and Mr.Peters, a sheriff, have gravel to the farm to investigate the strangling murder of basin Wright. One of John Wrights neighbors named Mr. shove discovered the body and rig Mrs. Wright sitting downstairs acting in an odd manner. He has come to assist them with his testimony. Two wo custody accompany them, the sheriffs wife Mrs. Peters and the neighbors wife, Mrs. Hale. As the play unfolds, the men remain baffled by the lack of any raise pointing directly to Ms. Wright as th e killer. The case will non be entirely resolved due to an observable lack of endorse of any need.The two male person investigators debate womens values and needs in a disrespectful light as mere trifles and because of this attitude they essentially mis go steady the crime they argon investigating and turn the two women into enemies who hold dear Mrs. Wright by tampering with the evidence. The men fail to see the household murkiness as evidence. When entering the home, the scurvy maintenance in the household is apparent to all four characters in this play. The County Attorney exclaims, Dirty towels Not some(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) of a housekeeper, would you say ladies? (1114). The women defend Mrs.Wright. Mrs. Hale responds, Those towels get dirty detestable quick. Mens hands arent always as clean as they cleverness be (1114). And after the men are out of earshot, Mrs. Hale is distinctly identifying with Mrs. Wright when she complains Id hate to hav e men coming into my kitchen, snoo spillg around and criticizing (1114). Although all four characters recognize that the house is not well kept, and and the women at a time understand that something was terribly wrong. The men go no further with their explanation of what the women instantly recognize as signs of discord in the home.A telephone exchange hang on of evidence in this play is a quilt that is being do by the suspect, Mrs. Wright, at the time of the murder. Upon inspecting Mrs. Wrights things, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters come across an unfinished quilt. It is Mrs. Hale who notices that the refinement role of the quilt is different. She points out to Mrs. Peters that the run up in most of the quilt is well-developed and carefully knitted. This is in sharp distinguish to the most recent turn of quilt. This final section has misplaced stitches and the poor workmanship which would happen under a high degree of ablaze distress. Mrs.Hale existentizes this only momen ts after the county attorney complains about a missing piece of evidence explaining Its all perfectly clear except a effort for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite thing. Something to show something to birth a story about a thing that would connect up with this strange way of doing it (1121). Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters realize that they are, in fact, looking at the exact evidence the county attorney had in mind. Mrs. Hale quietly undoes the stitching. early(a) critical piece of evidence is the myocardial infarct stitching in the quilt.Early in the play, the sheriff scoffs at the silliness of women discussing the type of stitching used to construct a quilt in the middle of an heavy murder scene, exclaiming sarcastically, They revere if she was going to quilt it or just knot it (1116). The point of feeling of the sheriff is clearly one in which he belittles female concerns over such a small detail when what he sees as a real conce rn, such as murder, is in question. The sheriff and county attorney ultimately fail to realize, or scour consider, the critical nature of this evidence.At the end of the play, the sheriff takes a moment to crucify the women a bit more about this topic. His sarcastic question about the quilting style is answered by a wicked pun from the author. Mrs. Hale explains that Mrs. Wright, instead of quilting it, was going to knot it ( 1121). Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters understand that this extension phone to a knot is in fact a direct summon to the way in which Mrs. Wright murdered her husband, by tying a knot around his neck and strangling him to death. She tied a knot in the quilt the same way she tied a knot around her husbands neck.The irony of this pun is that this very evidence, seen as preposterous by the county attorney, is actually central to the murder of Mr. Wright. Although the knot is right in front of his face, he would not be able to see the gist of it in a million years. The most obvious piece of evidence missed by the male investigators is the singing annulus. As the women are aggregation clothing and items to bring to Mrs. Wright at the jail, they come across a hushingie coop. Three questions are immediately evident. First, why is there a madam cage but no skirt?Second, what happened to the door of the bird cage? Of course, this leads to the third and final important question if the bird is missing, where is it? Within a few minutes, the women discover the fate of the bird. They find the pet hidden forward with great care. It is wrapped in silk inside Mrs. Wrights fanciest secure box. clear this was a type of burial, a shrine to a pricy pet. The women accommodate all of the central connections between the dead bird and the crime that the men are investigating. They immediately realize that the singing bird was Mrs.Wrights only companion. Mrs. Peters notes that the hinge on one side of the door has been ripped out and not fixed as if so meone broke into the cage to kill the animal. They see clearly that the birds neck was broken and understand that this beloved pet was killed out of shear meanness by the overbearing soul-crushing Mr. Wright. Mrs. Peters volunteers a story about one of her own pets that was killed by boys that she knew when she was jr.. They instantly understand that Mrs. Wright murdered her husband in retaliation for this brutal act.They see that this was the motive behind this murder. The bird in this play is a reminder of the care-free, singing, younger Minnie Foster who has now become the lonely, miserable Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Hales recollections wed the bird to Mrs. Wright. She explains to Mrs. Peters that when she was single years ago, Minnie Foster was well known in the community for being pretty, well dressed, and singing like a bird in the choir. Mrs. Hale observes, recalling Minnie Fosters singing, that he killed that too (1120).The central misunderstanding in this play is the male investiga tors inability to grasp the meaning of the readily available evidence. As the title suggests, the men see womens work and womens concerns as mere trifles. The men comment on the poor housekeeping in the home but do not seem to understand why or how it is associate to the murder they are investigating. The men fail to see why the bird cage is crucial evidence. The men investigating the crime make no effort to examine the quilting done by Mrs. Wright. The women, on the other hand, see all of these things in stark relief.They understand that the shabby contour of the home and the poor housekeeping criticized by the male investigators reflect the change magnitude alienation and despair of Mrs. Wright. The women instantly see the significance of the quilt. They recognize the incriminate nature of the emotional distress reflected in the shoddy last section of the quilt. They also find the crucial evidence of the case by inspecting the sewing box. The women find the murdered bird. Whe n they do, they immediately see that the bird is the lynch pin of the case. The bird is the motive.The bird explains, both in terms of meaning and in the reality of its broken neck, what actually happened to John Wright. He murdered the bird, so she murdered him The blindness of the men to the nature of the crime and their condescension to Mrs. Wright emboldens the women at the scene to destroy evidence. Both Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters make it clear that they doomed themselves for having been poor friends to Mrs. Wright. Perhaps Mrs. Hale puts this best when she says I stayed away because it werent cheerfuland thats why I ought to have come (1118).They even resolve to bring Mrs. Wright her bottle of preserves as a emblem of their concern and understanding. Subsequently, Mrs. Hale destroys the evidence of the poor stitching on the last quilt segment. She does this because she realizes that this is actually incriminating evidence because it reflects Mrs. Wrights emotional state. pur sual this, both Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters further tamper with the evidence by screen the dead bird. When the men asked what happened to the bird, Mrs. Hale lies We thinkthe cat got it (1119). Mrs. Peters could contradict Mrs.Hale. By not doing so she is also agreeing to lie and assisting Mrs. Hale in the expiry of evidence. In the final scene, both women attempt to hide the body of the bird and Mrs. Hale succeeds. They realize that the men are blind to the real motivation and nature of this crime. They are unafraid to destroy evidence which they know the men are too self-absorbed to find on their own. The play Trifles is a play about the lack of perspective men have for womens issues. At every turn, evidence for this crime is available and plain to see.The male investigators fail to see the evidence of the murder because of their disrespect of things that are important to women. In addition, by being so dismissive and callous, they turn the two women who actually understand the cr ime against them. In the end, they fail to see much of the evidence. The women hide the remaining evidence easily. The women truly understand the crime and are certainly not going to assist in the prosecution of a woman who they realize has been treated so poorly. Glaspell is telling us to take care seeing other peoples work, hopes, and dreams as trifles.