Trifles by

Susan Glaspell
About the Author

 Susan Glaspell, 1876-1943

 Raised in Davenport, Lowa
 Attended Drake University (PhD in Philosophy)
 Worked as a journalist before pursuing fiction
writing
 Awarded Pulitzer in 1931 for her play “Alice’s
House”
Other Major Works
 “A Jury of Her Peers” (1917)- Short story vision of
Trifles
 Judd Rankin’s Wife (1928) – Loosely based on the
life of Emily Dickinson
 The Morning is Near Us (1940)- sold over 100,000
copies
Historical Context-1916
 Women’s suffrage, birth control, socialism, union
organizing, and the psychological theories of
Sigmund Freud
 Women had not yet achieved the right to vote, and
in most states women could not sit on juries. It
wasn’t until 1920 that the 19th Amendment granted
women the right to vote.
 Very little protection for women from domestic
abuse.
Trifles: Introduction
 One-act play
 It is the story of murder mystery.
 It was first performed by the Provincetown Players at
the Wharf Theatre in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
 It was staged on August 8, 1916.
 It is based on the murder of 60 years old John
Hossack when Susan Glaspell was a journalist in Des
Moines Daily News.
 His wife Margaret was arrested for the murder.
Introduction Cont......
 Glaspell turned the play “Trifles” into a short
story, retitling it “A Jury of Her Peers”
SETTING

 The play is set in John Wright’s abandoned farmhouse.

It is a lonesome, gloomy place down in the hollow
where the road cannot be seen.
Characters:
 George Henderson, County Attorney
 Henry Peters, Sheriff
 Mrs. Peters, Sheriff’s wife
 Lewis Hale, A neighboring farmer
 Mrs. Hale, his wife
 John Wright, a farmer who is murdered
 Mrs. Minnie Wright (Minnie Foster), his wife
About the Play:
 The story’s motive is to reveal the murder of John
Wright.
 The characters suspect whether the murder must
be committed by his wife or someone else.
 The male characters doubt Mrs. Wright. So they
focus to search for evidence in the kitchen.
About the play cont....
 The story begins in the farm house of John Wright.
 The kitchen appears to be messy.
 The County Attorney, Sheriff and Mr. Hale enter to
the house. They are followed by Mrs. Hale and
Mrs. Peters.
 The women stand at the door. They do not join the
men near the fire to warm them.
Mr. Hale finds the
death of Mr. Wright

 The County Attorney makes sure whether nothing is

touched in the house.
 He begins to investigate Mr. Hale by asking him the
events of the previous day.
 Mr. Hale tells them that he visited Mr. Wright’s house
to ask about getting a telephone line.
 Mrs. Wright was sitting in a rocker moving back and
front. She had an apron in her hand and was nervously
pleating it.
Henry Peter comes to help Mr. Hale
 He found his wife’s behavior strange. She said
that her husband is dead upstairs with a rope
around his neck.
 She said that someone strangled her husband
when she was asleep.
 Then Mr. Hale brings the Sheriff-Henry Peters to
see the dead Mr. Wright upstairs.
 Henry goes to bring the coroner (an official who
holds inquests into violent, sudden, or suspicious
deaths).
 When Mr. Hale tells her about the telephone, she
laughs. Then she looks scared.
George Henderson investigates in
the Kitchen
 The glass jar of fruit preservative is broken
because of col. It has made the cupboard messy.
 Mrs. Peters interrupts that Mrs. Wright was
worried about it.
 Mr. Hale says that the women worry over the
trifles.
Henderson criticizes Mrs. Wright
 Dirty towels
 Poor housekeeping skills

Mrs. Hale supports Mrs. Wright

 The place was gloomy but she has not visited a year.
 Mr. Wright is to be blamed

(Mrs. Hale denies Henderson’s accusation)

The men then go upstairs in search of evidence

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter gather
things for Mrs. Wright
 HENDERSON ALLOWS Mrs. Hale and Mrs.
Peters to gather few belongings for Mrs. Wright.
 Mrs. Hale arranges the pan in the kitchen disturbed
by men.
 She does not like men criticizing women.
 They take clothes for Mrs. Wright from her
closest.
Mrs. Hale about Mrs. Wright
 Mrs. Hale remembers Mrs. Minnie
Wrights as an unmarried Minnie
Foster.
 She was very happy then.
 She used to sing beautifully.
 She was not cheerful after her
marriage.
 She has now asked only for her
apron and a shawl.
 She is worried about her fruit
perservative.
Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters about the
 Mrs. Peter says that her husband suspect
murder how could a wife up during a murder.
 Mrs. Hale mentions that her husband
found a gun in the house.
 It is suspicious to use a rope to murder
instead of the gun.
Cont….. Mrs. Peters finds a large sewing basket. It has
bright pieces. She was piecing a quilt.
 She was following log cabin pattern in which
the fabric is pieced around a center square.
 Mrs. Hale wonders if she was going to quilt it
or just knot it!
 The men go to barn in search of evidence. They
laugh listening to the women’s discussion about
the blanket to be quilted or knotted. Dismiss it as
trifle.
Mrs. Hale observes strange things
 Half of the dish-towel is clean.
 Loaf of bread outside the bread box.
 Unfinished quilt.
 One block of the quilt is made untidily than the
other stitches (shows nervousness)
 Mrs. Peters looks in a cupboard to find paper
and string to complete the quilt.
 But instead finds a birdcage.
 There was no bird.
 Mrs. Hale remembered a man who scold canary.
 May be a cat has got it. But Mrs. Wright did not
have a cat. She was upset when Mrs. Peters cat
went into her room.
 The door of the cage was broken.
 Mrs. Hale worries for not visiting Mrs. Wright all these
days.
 She knows Mr. Wright was a hard man.
 They do not have children. So the house must be quiet.
Mr. Wright goes out for work all day. He was not a
good company when he was at home.
 So Mrs. Wright must have had the canary as her
companion.
 Mrs. Hale says about Mrs. Wright, “She was kind of
like a bird herself-real sweet and pretty, but kind of
timid and-fluttery”.
 But she has changed after her marriage.