English 101
What do you think is the theme of Susan Glaspell’s Trifles? Many critics see this drama as a work about the plight of women. What statements or symbols do you see here that argue for or against this idea?
Trifles by Susan Glaspell
CAST
GEORGE HENDERSON (County Attorney)
HENRY PETERS (Sheriff)
LEWIS HALE, A neighboring farmer
MRS. PETERS
MRS. HALE
https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/full-texts-of-classic-works/trifles-by-susan-glaspell-full-text-of-the1916-one-act-play/
ANSWER
The theme of Susan Glaspell’s Trifles
It is relatively easy to argue that the theme of Trifles by Susan Glaspell is women’s plight. This is since it entails the story of a woman who has grown to be so enraged by her husband’s abuse that she ends up killing him. The symbols that indicate this theme are the trifles that make Mrs. Halle and Mrs. Peters realize what happened in the wrights’ farmhouse.
The symbols include broken jars of preserves, the bread which was left out to get stale, boring clothes that Mannie had begun wearing, a half-cleared table and the quilt with erratic stitching. Men tend to write off these things as trifles, where they lie in the mind of Mrs. wright. As her husband gets more abusive, she is unable to make her plight possible. She hence settles to dressing shabbily and is also unable to finish a task she started. To conclude their investigations, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters discovered broken cages and a dead bird.
The bird symbolizes Mrs. wright’s life before getting married to her abusive husband before getting herself into the predicaments. The bird also symbolizes her beauty and great voice before getting married to the offensive husband. On the other hand, the broken cage symbolizes the murder of her husband since Mrs. Wright is now free from the abuse since her husband is no longer alive. Hence, the entire story is a narration of women’s plight, where it expounds on their lives before and after getting themselves into violent and unstable relationships and marriages. The marriages then force them to do the unthinkable such as committed murder which is their only left solution to freedom.
