Glaspell's Trifles

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Last semester I read Susan Glaspell’s play, “Trifles,” in a theater class. I found the play interesting but read it differently than Elaine Hedges did as she explains in her article “Small things reconsidered Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury Of Her Peers”.” “A Jury Of Her Peers” is the story version of the play “Trifles.” My interpretation of the play was that it was simply a murder mystery in which two women concealed some incriminating evidence from the sheriff so as to keep a friend out of prison. Hedges looks much deeper into “Trifles” and provides, what I believe to be, some very valid points.


Hedges feels that the title of the play refers to clues that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters use to solve the mystery of the murder of John Wright. They include a soiled roller towel, a broken stove, a cracked jar of preservatives, and an erratically stitched quilt block. It is by decoding these “Trifles,” which the men ignore, that the two women not only solve the murder mystery, but also develop their sense of identity as women with Minnie Wright, and demonstrate their sisterhood with her by acting to protect her from male law and judgment.


Right from the very beginning of the play it is evident that there is a separation between the sexes. The men are walking about the house and the women are standing close together at the door separate from the men. As the men point out flaws in the kitchen of the house and then make some comments about women in general, the women move closer together.


While the men peruse the rest of the house the women are left to poke about downstairs and that is when they discover the most incriminating clues that point towards Minnie Wright’s guilt. First they find a quilt that Minnie had been working on in which the last few stitches were erratically sewn. They interpreted this as a signal that something had been seriously wrong. Mrs. Hale reacts immediately and fixes the quilt, this is the first attempt made by the women to cover up Minnie’s guilt.


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After Mrs. Hale finishes the quilt the ladies get into a discussion about Minnie Wright. They compare her younger self to a bird in voice and in nature stating that “she was kind of like a bird herself � real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and � fluttery.” (p. 100 Norton) Then the two women find the missing canary with a wrung neck in a decorative box in the sewing basket. This horrifies them as they realize that the loss of the bird could have triggered murderous behavior in Minnie. Mrs. Peters solidifies this supposition by providing her own story of a beloved pet lost and how she wanted to “hurt” the perpetrator of the crime.


It seems that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are revolting against male authority in these acts to protect Minnie. Hedges wrote that Mrs. Peter’s “revolt occurs when she snatches the box containing the dead bird � the evidence that could condemn Minnie � in order to conceal it from the men.” (p. 104 Hedges) Mrs. Peters is unsuccessful in concealing the box so Mrs. Hale places it into her coat pocket to keep it from the men.


The last few lines in “Trifles” are an excellent conclusion because they really sum up the whole theme of the play. The men point out to the women that at least they found out that Minnie was not “quilting” the quilt but instead, and then Mrs. Hale helps him with the answer while resting her hand against the box in her pocket, “knot it, Mr. Henderson.” (p. 1005 Norton) According to Hedges the meaning of this line is that all three women have said ““not” or “no” to male authority, and in doing so they have knotted or bonded themselves together.” (p. 107 Hedges)


After having read Hedges “Small things reconsidered Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury Of Her Peers”,” it was interesting to read “Trifles” again as a feminist classic rather than a simple murder mystery. Glaspell does a wonderful job with the play and Hedges offers a very revealing feminist criticism of the play. I think that the fact that the article is fifteen years doesn’t affect its validity because it is based on a play that is almost ninety years old.





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