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Textual Analysis of Trifles

Gender Insensitivity

Introduction

The main theme of the play is gender insensitivity whereby the male gender does not

appreciate the female gender. Over the year’s women have often been perceived to be inferior to

men. Glaspell did a play before the era of female movement and depicted how women were

suffering in marriages in the hands of their husbands. The word trifles generally signify objects

of no value or little value. This is sensible according to the context of play because of the items

that the female characters interact with. Another interpretation may also be that males do not

know the value of females and therefore consider them trifles (Wades). Therefore, in the play,

women are depicted as objects of no value. Therefore this paper focuses on the main theme of

the play.

In the play, gender insensitivity begins through the first interaction when the party gets

into the house through the final lines of dialogue. The male gender holds all the formal posts in

the community and carries out all the official powers. For instance, two out of three are the

sheriff and the county attorney of the community. The investigation of the house where the crime

was committed has depicted a stern division of labor along gender lines. This is due to the fact

that men hold positions representing the public and the women represent domestic affairs. For

instance, when men debate about the law and look for reasons, the women are compelled to
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collect Minnie Wright's essential requirements in jail to comfort her while serving her sentence.

This shows an act of compassion and caregiving on the side of women towards their own. The

women also recognize the symbol of the disorderly kitchen as very significant than the males do.

While the men merely dismiss Mrs. Wright as an unclean woman, the females understand the

mess significance which is Minnie Wrights's internal turmoil concerning the death of both her

bird and her spirit manifests itself outwardly in her kitchen's disarray. (Wades).

It is improbable that had the females been alone, they would have had an adequate

understanding or the audacity to make crucial decisions. Though as the trifles demonstrate the

arduousness of Mrs. Wrights life (and by the proposition of their own), the articles associate the

lives of all the three allowing Mrs. Peters and Hale to contradict patriarchal law, a decision

especially weighty for Mrs. Peters who as she is reminded by the district attorney, is married to

the law (Mael, 281). This means that Mrs. Peter is married to Mr. Peter who is a law enforcer

and therefore should not go against the law by trying to protect Mrs. Wright. When Mr. Peter,

the county attorney incorporates the women to join him nearer the woodstove, his wife responds,

'I'm not cold' this response reveals the interrelation between the males and females in the tale.

The females are bound by traditions as well as manners. This need to appear polite leads to her

lie to the district attorney, and the power disparity between the two leads to Mrs. Peter being

uncertain to even finish up a sentence in reaction to a direct query.

When the men finish analyzing upstairs of the Wright's house and the females had

finished collecting the things Mrs. Wright had requested for. The district attorney made a

decision to stay for a while and attempt the carry out a better job by trying to establish what had

exactly taken place; Mrs. Peter cleverly takes the dead bird and puts the box in her pocket so that

evidence against Mrs. Wright is not found. She is aware that the men are in search of some kind
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of strong evidence so as to enable the judge determines that Mrs. Wright had a reason for the

criminal act. At this juncture, all the men are convinced that indeed, Minnie Wright killed her

spouse, though they perceive that without any kind of strong proof, Minnie may be freed of the

case. The women are in the know of this and therefore they empathize with Minnie Wright who

was cooped up in this horrifying house for all these times with suchlike smothering and boring

life. That is the motive behind them not leaving the dead bird as proof for the case against their

counterpart (Mael, 281).

At the start of the play, the sheriff appears as though he does not actually care about this

whole incidence. He tells the district attorney when asked concerning the kitchen, "Nothing here

but kitchen things." This line is the first of the numerous disparaging comments uttered to

demean women in the community. It makes it appear as if he almost did not even bother to look

through the kitchen cautiously so as to know whether there is really nothing in that kitchen

worthy of investigation. That was evidently a mistake and chauvinism on the part of men

whereby he meant that kitchen matters and for women and due to this, the women got a strong

piece of evidence in the kitchen that would support the case and incriminate the suspect. This

signifies that the fact that men are not in support of women in society, they tend to lose in their

decisions and suffer great loss in life. If in the play, men viewed women as important and equal

to them, they would have gotten the key evidence and hence found Mrs. Wright guilty of

murdering their counterpart (Nelligan 85-104).

The county attorney together with the Sheriff appears to have a jaded perception of

females and their significance in the community. They kind of neglect the opinions of the women

as though they are not capable of carrying out the investigation or anything else other than

gathering Minnie's belonging and dwell in the kitchen where they belong conventionally. It is the
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general stereotyping whereby females are supposed to be in the kitchen and do things instructed

by their men. Glaspell was ahead of her time by demonstrating how men were oppressing their

women just like Mr. Wright did to Minnie Wright. Minnie was a gregarious woman who got fed

up by the kind of life she was leading in her marriage and made a decision to put the misery to a

stop (Angel 548-563). Unluckily, she might spend all her life in prison even though she made

that decision to rescue herself from the misery of being unappreciated and tied down for what

she actually could have been.

It is alleged that in the past before her marriage, Minnie Wright used to put on elegant

clothes. As well as sing in the chore, up to when her husband took away her happy life. The

Sheriff, as well as the District attorney, were not oppressing their wives to this extremity like

their counterpart Mr. Wright was. Their wives were contented and had their time to carry out

their own dealings with one another. These men certainly have serious thoughts and feelings

towards females that provide evidence that they could soon be on the path to being in the same

kind of relationship and household that the Wrights were in.

Women in the play also make a point of to what degree marriage transforms Minnie

Wright's foster. There is an express line amid what these females experienced in the past when

they were still girls. For example, when Mrs. Peter was still a girl, a boy killed her kitten. It also

depicts what the three women are experiencing as adults. For example, a man killing a bird

belonging to Minnie Wright. It is also a direct line between the manner in which men acted as

boys and the manner in which they acted as grown-ups (Holstein 282). The damaging of the

spirit of the women commence when women are still girls and are accomplished when they are

grown-up individuals.
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Conclusion

In summary, trifle is a play that is focused on the oppression women undergo in the hands

of their husbands. Traditionally, women are perceived to be very vulnerable and cannot stand up

for themselves. Glaspell at her time realizes this and understands that women are not what men,

as well as the society, perceive them to be. During this time, when the author wrote this play, the

world was known for being negative on the female gender. It was prior to the women's rights

campaign and hence, the females had not had the stamina to stand up on their own to defend

their rights. Therefore, Minnie decided to free herself from marriage oppression by terminating

the life of her oppressor and her fellow women decided to back her up by not providing the key

evidence that could incriminate her.

Works Cited

Angel, Marina. "Teaching Susan Glaspell's A Jury of Her Peers and Trifles." Journal of Legal

Education 53.4 (2003): 548-563.

Holstein, Suzy Clarkson. "Silent justice in a different key: Glaspell's" Trifles"." The Midwest

Quarterly 44.3 (2003): 282.

Mael, Phyllis. "Trifles: The path to sisterhood." Literature/Film Quarterly 17.4 (1989): 281.
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Nelligan, Liza Maeve. "The haunting beauty from the life we’ve left: A contextual reading of

Trifles and The Verge." Susan Glaspell: Essays on her theater and fiction (1995): 85-

104.

Wade, Bradford. The Story of a Murdered Farmer in ‘Trifle’ By Susan Glaspell. 2019

https://www.thoughtco.com/trifles-by-susan-glaspell-overview-2713537