Susan Glaspell - Trifles

                The play ‘Trifles’ by Susan Glaspell is a murder mystery that explores gender relationships, power between sexes, and the nature of truth.  This is the kind of reading material that interests me and I loved reading this play.  I love mystery murder novels and TV shows as well.  This is based on actual events that occurred in Iowa at the turn of the century.  Glaspell covered the murder trial of a farmer’s wife, Margaret Hossack, in Indianola, Iowa while she worked as a reporter for the Des Moines News.  Hossack was accused of murdering her husband.  The play ‘Trifles’ is based on a story very similar to this but Glaspell used different names.  Within the play, the farmer and his wife never actually appear.  The story focuses on the prosecutor, George Henderson, who has been called in to investigate the murder; Henry Peters, the local sheriff; Lewis Hale, a neighboring farmer who discovered Wright’s body; and Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, wives of the two local men.  The three men rage and storm around the farmhouse and the barn searching for clues.  The two women discover bits of evidence in the ‘trifles’ of a farmer’s wife – her baking, cleaning and sewing.  The three men virtually ignore the woman’s world; they remain blind to the truth before their eyes.  I think that the most important theme in ‘Trifles’ is the diversity between men and women.  The two sexes are separated by the roles that they play in society, their physicality, their methods of communication and their powers of observation.  Through this play men tend to be hostile, forceful, impolite, critical and selfish.  Women are more cautious, purposeful, sensitive, and thoughtful to the needs of others.  This is why the women were able to find more clues than the men were.  The women thought and looked for things the way that a woman would.  Relating to someone can help you to better understand what they are going through and why they do the things that they do.  There is never any proof of who tied the rope around Wright’s neck so more than likely Mrs. Wright will not be charged for his murder.  I think that if the men would have found the dead bird in the red box then they would have had proof that there were problems within the home and possibly a motive for the murder.