TRIFLES

Trifles by Susan Glaspell

Trifles by Susan Glaspell

Introduction

This one act play, “Trifles,” is written by Susan Glaspell. This play tells the story about how the observation of women is far better than men. The story revolves around the murder of Mr. Wright. It shows how the men in the story investigate the crime scene but fail to find the evidence while the women in the story manage to detect the evidence merely by observing the living room.

Thesis: The myriad clues overlooked by men in the story Trifles; lead a discerning reader to the conclusion that they are symbolic of women's superiority in terms both of morality and powers of observation.

POC: In the story Trifles the men seem to think the women only worry about the little things, or trifles. What the men do not realize is that the women are actually solving the murder by worrying, or trifling, over the small details. The women's clever and keen eyes pick up a multitude of clues the men could never have seen.

Discussion

After the murder of Mr. Wright is revealed and Mrs. Wright has been taken to custody, the men, Mr. Hale, the attorney and the sheriff go to investigate the crime scene. The women characters, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters remain in the kitchen. They intend to pass the time by chatting. While chatting along, the women start observing their environment. They see the details of the room which the men characters dismissed as unimportant (Makowsky, 1993). The women see an empty bird cage, a half messy and half clean table, a quilt which is left unfinished, a loaf of bread which is left outside the box and some fruits that have been ruined. These clues were not considered important by the men. After looking around the room, they had declared that, “nothing here except kitchen things.” the men also criticize the kitchen skills of Mrs. Wright. However, these clues which the men dismissed where the clues which were the most important and were discovered by the women. This shows that the women have a keener sense of observation as compared to men. The women knew how a female keeps her house. The women characters knew that which things were supposed to go where. Referring to the left out loaf of bread, “She was going to put this in here,” it seemed to them that the bread was left out because of hurry. After observing the fruit gone bad the women declare, “It's a shame about her fruit, she'll feel awful bad after all her hard work in the hot summer.”

As soon as the characters find out about the murder of Mr. Wright, the men immediately concluded that Mrs. Wright had killed him. The men reached that conclusion without even looking for clues or investigating the crime scene. The women, however, kept an open outlook. They did not make a hasty decision without thinking things through. Due to the fact that the women were keeping an open outlook while men were sure ...