Trifles

Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles is the perfect play. Well ok, maybe that’s too much, nothing is perfect. But it is terribly neat and tidy. There is a major twist, manipulation, and a surprise element. The women (Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters) are “used to worrying over trifles.” But throughout the entire plot it is the women who do the detective work. It is women’s intuition that solves the case. But it is the men who miss the mark. They underestimate the women. Fantastic! And then, like a bloody sisterhood, the women protect their own, a fallen woman. They understand her and wish they had of done more to protect her from Mr. Wright who was “a hard man” as Mrs Hale says. This plot is all accomplished in one act! I love the fact that in the intro to the play it talks about how Glaspell got her inspiration – she sat in the theatre and it all came to her. I can feel this. I can see her there, sort of. Let’s remember this is 1916! What was she wearing? And what about the women in the play, did they look like her? I think so. It inspires me to think that women in 1916 were women that I might know today – courageous, spirited, and ready to do what is right for a downtrodden sister. You might counter this by saying “but she killed her husband, killing is wrong, it’s a sin.” I don’t know about that because he killed her spirit and her dreams, long before she took his life.

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