37
1917

Trifles: Modern Drama

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Trifles: A drama by Susan Glaspell that comprises literary elements, metaphors through women's strife and solidarity. It represents primary movement to women's suffrage and political equality through men's presumptuous deduction.

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Page 1: Trifles: Modern Drama

1917

Page 2: Trifles: Modern Drama

Susan Glaspell

Page 3: Trifles: Modern Drama

Summary

• Characters• Synopsis• Notes

Page 4: Trifles: Modern Drama

Characters

• Sheriff (Mr. Peters)

• County Attorney (Mr. Henderson)

• Mr. Hale

• Mrs. Peters

• Mrs. Hale

• John Wright

• Minnie Foster (Mrs. Wright)

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Trifles

house

bleak Gloomy kitchen

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Female

Mrs.Hale Mrs.Peters Mrs. Wright

Male

Mr.Wright C.Attorny

Mr.Hale

Frank

Sheriff

Harry

Mrs. Peters: Laws

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Dialogue

“Though I said to Harry that I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much different to John” Mr.Hale

“Well, women are used to worrying over trifles” Mr.Hale

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Mr. Wright

Mrs. Wright

Death

Rocking Chair

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Mr.Hale, Sheriff, C.Attorney

Mrs.Hale, Mrs.Peters

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Men

2nd floor

Women

Log Cabin!

Cage!

Dead Canary!

Cherries

Untidy kitchen

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Mrs. PetersDead Canary

Mrs.HaleBox

! !

!

!

!

!

!!!

!

Men

They call it---knot it.

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Trifles

Outside – Below Zero

Kitchen- Untidy

Hale, Sheriff, C.Attorney- CSI

Mrs.Hale, Mrs.Peters- stand close together

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Mr. Hale tells about what he just saw yesterday

- Party telephone

- Mr.Wright dead

- Mrs. Wright rocking the chair – her reaction

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- C.A. looks on the shelf

- the frozen fruit

- Men’s reaction to women’s trifles

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- Mrs. Hale and the towels

“There’s a great deal of work to be done on farm”

“Loyal to your sex”

“ But I don’t think a place’d be any cheerfuller for John Wright’s being in it.”

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• Mrs. Peters take some clothes for Minnie

Mrs. Hale: “I’d hate to have men…snooping around and criticizing”

Mrs. Peters: “Of course it’s no more than their duty.”

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Mrs. Hale& Mrs. Peters found:- Breadbox- Cherries- Clothes

Mrs. Hale and the rocking chair“…With a slow look at it, steps back.”

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Mrs. Hale: Minnie Foster as a choir member

Mrs. Peters: apron and shawl/ Dirty v.s. natural

“Do you think she did it?”

“Oh, I don’t know”

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• Mrs. Peters: “Mr. Henderson said coming out that what was needed for the case was a motive…”

• Found “log cabin” quilt

“I wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it?”- trifles

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Mrs. Hale - pulled at a knot and ripped the sewing

Mrs. Peters – to find strings in a cupboard

Found : Birdcage, one hinge is pulled apart

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Mrs. Hale and Mr. Wright characteristics

- He paid his debts, he didn’t drink, kept his word

Mrs. Hale and Minnie characteristics

- she was kind of a bird herself, pretty, sweet, timid, fluttery

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Found: The dead canary in the box – broken neck…

Mrs. Hale and Peters discover the truth

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Mrs. Peters

- her stillness, her first baby died after he was two years old.

- her kitten, a boy and a hatchet

Women hides the evidence

“We call it – knot it, Mr.Henderson”

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Theme

• What is the theme of the story?

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Symbolism

Dead Canary

Cage

Knot it

Incompleted quilt

???Wright

Party telephone

Page 33: Trifles: Modern Drama

Female

Mrs.Hale Mrs.Peters Mrs. Wright

Male

Mr.Wright C.Attorny

Mr.Hale

Frank

Sheriff

Harry

sarcastic

Law m.

Bird&cage

Frozen FruitIncompleted quiltCageDead bird

Knot it?

detectors

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Mrs. Hale

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Questions

• How does the physical location of the characters help develop the theme?

• Who are more fully developed, the two women or the three men?

• Indicate several ways Susan Glaspell conditions the audience to accept the final decision.

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• Explain the use of symbols in Trifles

• What is the hidden meaning of Mrs. Hale’s last reply?

• Women are pitted against their husbands and other men. How are the men and women portrayed?

• Mythic elements, do these elements lift the play, from its regionalism and give it a universal importance.

Page 37: Trifles: Modern Drama

Notes

• Discovering a secret that binds them, the two must realize painful truths in their own lives, become aware of all they have in common with Minnie Wright, and gradually resolve to side with the accused against the men.