Sunday 10 November 2013

Explorations of the Text: Trifles by Susan Glaspell



Trifles


2. What clues lead the women to conclude that Minnie Wright killed her husband?
When Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale were in the kitchen, they found some evidence that leads to the conclusion that Minnie Wright might killed her husband. The found the preserves fruit, erratic quilt stitching, the broken birdcage and a dead canary inside a fancy box. Mrs. Hale also claimed that Minnie Wright led a miserable life after she got married to John Wright. Minnie Wright could not have her freedom, like old time when she could sing in choir and wear a nice dress.


3. How do the men differ from the women? from each other?
The men seem differ from women on the intuition aspect. The men mistakenly assumed that the kitchen actually contains some important clues for John Wright’s murder. When they saw the condition of the kitchen, they assumed that there was nothing there except kitchen things. In contrast, the women have some thought for the incident. When they found the clues, they could relate with the character of Minnie Foster and John Wright. It also shows that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peter understand Wrights’ couple problem than the men based on the clues that they found. 


4. What do men discover? Why do they conclude “Nothing here but kitchen things”?
When the men went to the kitchen, they found that the awful condition of the kitchen which leads to the irony of the story.  The men; Sheriff, County Attorney and Hale attribute so little significance. When they said “Nothing here but kitchen things,” they seem did not care for the condition in the kitchen. The situation shows that they have weak intuition when they saw the kitchen’s condition. They recklessly said that Minnie Foster was a lazy housekeeper and criticized her without knowing of her true character. On the other hand, Mrs. Peter and Mrs. Hale could relate the miserable life of Minnie Foster and the cheerless kitchen. They also found some clues like the quilt, the broken cage and dead canary. It shows that the ironic fact as the women could found evidence in the kitchen, which is in everyday household things.


Work cited:

Schmidt, Jan Zlotnik and Lynne Crockett, eds. Portable Legacies. Boston: Cengage Learning                 Wadsworth, 2009.

Glaspell, Susan. Trifles.  Schmidt and Crockett, eds. 709.

Tate, Margaret. Irony and Intuition in  “A Jury of Her Peers”. 1993.  Sat. 9 Nov. 2013.                              http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~rrojas/JuryofherPeers.htm

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