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Drama, Mystery, Parable It’s no big secret how Trifles qualifies as drama. It’s a play, right? It’s a piece of literature written mostly in dialogue that’s never fully realized until it’s brought to life by actors in front of an audience.
of little to no value
Because Trifles is a play instead of a prose story, it does not have a conventional “point of view” as such. The common terms of “third/first person-omniscient/limited” don’t apply, because the audience only sees what is presented as action and dialogue.
The dramatic question that Trifles presents us with at the outset is “Will a motive be found for Minnie to have killed her husband?” (or, alternatively: will the prosecutor end up with the evidence he needs to convict his suspect of John Wright’s death?
What Is the Dramatic Question of a Story? The dramatic question has to do with the central conflict involving your protagonist. It is usually introduced in the first act of your novel or screenplay, either at the inciting incident of your story or shortly thereafter.
John Wright has been strangled to death with a rope in his mega-creepy Midwestern farmhouse. The main suspect of the grizzly crime? His wife. As the County Attorney, Sheriff Peters, and a neighboring farmer named Mr.
The dead bird is a significant piece of evidence in Trifles as it tells us how and why Mrs. Wright snapped and killed her husband. Mr. Wright broke the bird’s neck with a rope, and in response his wife flipped and killed him in the exact same way.
The dirty towels represent Mrs. Wright’s relationship with her husband. Wright had failed as the housekeeping did, and became ‘dirty’ or lost what makes a relationship alive and healthy. The kitchen table represents unfinished business in a way which is weird since Mrs.
Although John Wright’s act of strangling the songbird was a single cruel act, it symbolizes the way he has treated Minnie throughout their marriage. The act of killing the bird also “killed” Minnie’s remaining hope, causing her to retaliate in response to years, rather than one single act, of mistreatment.
A major theme in “A Jury of Her Peers” is crime and punishment. While Minnie may have committed the murder of her husband, she is tried and found not guilty by the women who visit her home.
The conflict in the story is that Mr. Wright has been murdered an nobody knows who has done it. Well, except three people. Minnie Wright has killed her husband and only Mrs.
Use of Irony: The various male characters in the story continually belittle the female characters for their seemingly insignificant domestic chores like sewing and cooking. However, Glaspell introduces irony when these domestic “pleasantries” become the very key to solving the crime.
Martha Hale is established as the protagonist of the story from the first few paragraphs. She is more strong-willed than Mrs. Peters (and is given a first name, unlike the other woman).
In Trifles, Mrs. Peters’s statement, and later Mrs. Hale’s, that Mrs. Wright was going to knot the quilt is an example of dramatic irony because the audience knows that knotting the quilt refers to the way that Minnie Wright killed her husband.
Dramatic irony illustrates the impact of misconceptions, adding depth to a story. One effective use of dramatic irony occurs in Susan Glaspell’s play “Trifles” when the two female characters discover a dead bird, a clue to a murder that remains unknown to other key characters in the play.
“Trifles” was written in 1916, a time when women’s roles in society were thought to be beneath men. Throughout the play, the men’s comments reveal they regard women’s remarks and opinions as irrelevant. Through dialogue, the play shows men have disrespect for women’s roles and consider homemaking a worthless job.
Literary Devices in Trifles
The title of the play is oozing with irony. The title comes from this gem of a line from Hale: “Well, women are used to worrying about trifles” (132). He says this in response to the fact that Mrs. Wright seems to be more worried about her preserves bursting than she is about the fact that she’s being held for murder.
Thus, a bird in the play “Trifles” symbolizes Mrs. Wright, her sweet and friendly character before the changes caused by an unhappy marriage. The bird could be also a symbol of Minnie’s unborn children that she could devote all her love and care to if she had them.
The ironic title of the play shapes its meaning because trifles means something of small value or little importance. 2.) How does the setting of the play contribute to our understanding of Minnie Wright’s position? The setting of the play is in the kitchen of a farmhouse.
How did Mrs. Wright react to her husband’s death? She said,”He died of a rope around his neck.”
After she looks around the stark house of the Wrights, becoming disturbed by the worn and shabby clothes of Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Hale experiences guilt for not having visited Minnie Foster. For, she realizes how terribly deprived of comfort and lonely the woman has been.
Wright’s possible motivation for killing her husband? The dialogue suggests that Mr. The dialogue suggests that Mrs. Wright may have desired to escape her unhappy marriage.
Hale is motivated by guilt. She’s always regretted not having reached out to her neighbor, Minnie Foster, by visiting her more often. Hale reflects on Minnie Foster’s life at the farm, her sense of guilt only increases.
Hale fixes the quilt to both help Mrs. Wright and avoid giving the men yet another thing with which to find fault. Wright had been working on the quilt after she killed her husband. In her anguished state, she pretended that all was normal, refusing to think about what she had done or the consequences that might come.
Wright changes during the play. At first, when Hale narrates the story of what happened, she is presented as a calm and peaceful person. However, as the story unfolds, and she turns out to be a potential murder, the impression changes to a troublesome woman regardless of her exterior.