(Actually, this is my second paper after a paper about Catcher in the Rye , however, this is the first paper I wrote with complete references. I'm sorry if there are any mistakes in grammar, I will revise it. Then I also thank some writers whose paper being my references, hopefully, I am right in interpreting your ideas to support my paper. If there are any mistakes in my paper you can contact me in emkpsw@gmail.com)
Maria
Kristina Pingkan
3rd Grade
Student, Faculty of Letters, Christian University of Indonesia
Written in 1916, Trifles is Susan Glaspell’s, a young journalist
and writer, one act-play that was inspired by a real murder case that happened in
1900 (wikipedia.com/Trifles n.d.) The case is about a
woman named Margaret Hossack who killed her husband, John Hossack, and of course,
it shocked the society because it rarely happened at that age. Although
Margaret Hossack had 9 children, her husband, Mr. Hossack, was treated her
really bad. Ben Zvi, in her paper, explains that Mr. Hossack was an abusive
husband and father for his family yet rich and successful farmer. (Ben-Zvi 1992, 152) That is why Margaret
Hossack seems should be happy but she was not and her neighbors who heard about
her problem encouraged her to reconcile with her husband and privately keep her
marital troubles. Unexpectedly, Margaret Hossack suspected for the murder of
her husband and was eventually found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment
with hard labor. Even though she always said that she had been sleeping while
the murder happened, the juries still stated that she was guilty. (Chung 1999) Therefore, this case
attracted Glaspell’s attention and moves her to creatively make a new version
of the Hossacks’ case and keep the essences (marriage life) in the famous play
“Trifles.” and later, the short-story
version entitled “A Jury of Her Peers”
in1917.
The play talks about the plight of
a wife named Minnie Wright imprisoned in her marriage to John Wright who is found
dead by a neighbor named Mr. Hale. It is all about marriage and the
imprisonment inside causing pressures to women either their families are rich
or poor. The writer starts reading this play which begins with a scene where
some people coming to John Wright’s farmhouse to collect some evidences about
this murder. She finds about it from Mrs. Peters’ dialogues “Mr. Henderson said
coming out that what was needed for the case was a motive; something to show
anger, or--sudden feeling.” (Glaspell 1916) . The reason of this
action in Kathy Chung’s perspective in her paper, is to base the court cases on circumstantial evidence and offer glimpses of how women's
circumstances were viewed by society since witnesses could not be found (Chung 1999). Then, those characters in this play are divided into men
and women having different perspectives, such as the women are too concerned
with trifles while men are busy in searching the evidences to prove that Minnie
Wright is guilty. The men are Mr. Peters (a sheriff), Mr. Lewis Hale (a
witness) and Mr. George Henderson (county attorney) and the women are Mrs. Hale
and Mrs. Peters. The men go upstairs and continue their works to prove their
suspicions to Mrs. Wright based on Lewis Hale’s testimony when he was looking
for Mr. Wright. He found that Mrs. Wright’s attitudes were so suspicious when
she told that her husband had died. On the other hand, the women collect some
stuff from the house for Mrs. Wright. Coincidentally, they find some clues that
Mrs. Wright is the murderer of her own husband. The clues are empty birdcage
and dead bird in the box which its condition is as same as John Wright’s
condition when he died with a wrung-neck, … "He died of a rope round his neck." (Glaspell
1916)
In the last part of the play, the women hide the clues they find because they
sympathize to Minnie Wright and her suffering in marriage caused by loneliness.
Moreover, these women (Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters), even though they do not
really know and close to Minnie Wright, help her due to their position as
fellow woman and what they know about Minnie’s life before and after her
marriage with John Wright.
Therefore, in this play, Glaspell brings
several issues, namely: loneliness,
oppression, female identity, law, marriage, patriarchal dominance, revenge,
women’s empathy, etc. (gradesaver.com/trifles n.d.) This paper, however,
will only focus and investigate on the hard-life marriage experienced by women
and its effects, especially about imprisonment, loneliness, and oppression depicted
through Minnie Wright in Glaspell’s Trifles.
The reason why the writer chooses these themes (imprisonment, loneliness, and
oppression) is because they are connected each other, then form a cause-effect relationship.
This imprisonment gives a feeling of loneliness to Minnie Wright for 30 years
of her marriage with John Wright, reflected in Mrs. Hale’s dialogues,
Wright was close. I think maybe
that's why she kept so much to herself. She didn't even belong to the Ladies
Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn't do
her part, and then you don't enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to
wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town
girls singing in the choir. But that--oh, that was thirty years ago. This
all you was to take in (Glaspell 1916)
It is clear that Minnie Wright’s
life before her marriage with John seems cheerful, lively and sociable. On the
other hand, it has drastically change because of the marriage and she becomes
lonely for her life with John is not as a life as she used to. As an effect,
this loneliness results an oppression to Minnie Wright, so it represses a “burst”
in herself. This burst is manifested in the murder of John by her and triggered
by an incident where John Wright kill his wife’s lovely bird, the only friend
of Minnie. In conclusion, the writer decides to discuss about imprisonment,
loneliness and oppression as the effect of marriage represented through Minnie
Wright’s life in Glaspell’s Trifles for
these themes are clearly connected for her.
The first theme the writer will
discuss is about imprisonment. She tries to find some perspectives about
imprisonment in Trifles through symbolism and society background. Imprisonment
happened in Minnie Wright’s condition in marriage where she has to be imprisoned
in a “cage” of marriage reflected through the
bird and its cage. This analysis is
supported by an essay from Marina Angel (Temple University School of Law) as a
perspective from a jurist in her writing entitled “Teaching the short
story A Jury of Her Peers and the play Trifles”.
She tells that the door of the bird cage was violently torn off, indicating
tremendous anger and violence of an explosive nature. The theme of the
explosive violence Minnie Wright lived with is also symbolized by the bursting
of her preserve jars due to extreme cold. One jar remained intact as a small
indicator of hope. Then, she also says that the cage imprisoned the bird.
Minnie Wright was imprisoned in her abusive marriage and in her isolated home.
During the story she is imprisoned in jail, a cage. (Angel n.d.)
Besides the imprisonment Minnie Wright feelings represented
through the symbolism of bird, cage, and jar, there is a statement from Asianti
whose quotes emphasize the imprisonment comes from the patriarchy society that
forms women as second citizen, so it locks women self-actualization. Minnie, as
a wife, should be obey to every rules her husband made and has no own decision
for her own life.
Mrs.
Minnie lived under pressures because of rules made by her husband. When men set
any rules, they put women to the lower position at the same time. In other
words, men are the first and automatically women are the second citizen in
patriarchy society. It means that women have to obey all rules which
exclusively design to restrict women’s life and impede them to grow
psychologically. It surely abuses women psychological life and also locks
women’s self-actualization. (Asianti 2012)
Thus, it is hard for Minnie to be in this marriage, however, she
passes this tens of year. It does not stop in imprisonment but this
imprisonment will continue to other effects, such as loneliness and oppression.
In summary, the imprisonment in Minnie Wright’s marriage can be analyzed from symbolism
in literature and patriarchy in society’s perspective about the treatment for
women and continue the misery of Minnie Wright.
The imprisonment
Minnie Wright has behind her obedience and quietness as a “good” wife at that
time, causes loneliness in her life. Then, being in a loneliness without a
child, relatives or friends is one effect of Minnie Wright’s unhappy marriage
life uniquely and specially crafted by Glaspell. It is because all of Minnie’s and John Wright’s characters
and marriage life situation portrayed by other characters’ speeches although they
do not directly appear in this play. Actually, Minnie and John Wright does not have
same characters but the thirty-years marriage changes Minnie’s life she used to.
The character of John Wright is hard and not cheerful stated in Mrs. Hale’s
words, “..but
I don't think a place'd be any cheerfuller for John Wright's being in it… he
didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most…paid his debts. but he was a hard
man…like a raw wind that gets to the bone.” (Glaspell 1916) . Whereas,
the characters of Minnie as explained before are cheerful, lively, and
sociable. She also likes singing while her husband like a quiet circumstances. Here are some dialogues from
the play proving the loneliness Minnie has and her life before marriage:
MRS. PETERS: But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs. Hale. It
would be lonesome for me sitting here alone.
MRS. HALE [Not as if
answering that.] I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white
dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang.
MRS. HALE: I could've come. I stayed away because it weren't
cheerful--and that's why I ought to have come. I--I've never liked this place.
Maybe because it's down in a hollow and you don't see the road. I dunno what it
is, but it's a lonesome place and always was, I wish I had come over to see
Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now—
MRS. HALE [With a slow
look around her.] I wonder how it would seem never to have had any
children around. [Pause.] No,
Wright wouldn't like the bird--a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed
that, too. (Glaspell 1916)
In her loneliness, she still stays
in the marriage because of the society demand. However, she does not receive
the same treatment from John Wright because her bird that always accompanies
her, has wringed by her husband. Indeed, it is just an animal, but it was the
only Minnie’s friend for she is always lonely, without a child and without a
husband that understands her condition. Furthermore, John Wright always works all day, so he cannot realize
what his wife’s loneliness and it shows how egoist Mr. Wright is. Besides, he
also does not install telephone at home as in Mr. Hale’s statement about Mr. Wright:
"I'm going
to see if I can't get John Wright to go in with me on a party telephone " I spoke to Wright about it once
before and he put me off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and all he asked
was peace and quiet--).
So, Minnie Wright, in her
loneliness without any children, never communicates with her relatives or
neighbors about her marriage life because of her husband. This assumption supported
by another Linda Ben-Zvi’s statement of her paper, that Minnie Foster is a lonely, childless woman, married to a taciturn
husband, isolated from neighbors because of the rigors of farm life (Ben-Zvi 1992) .
Talking about oppression as one of
the processes of Minnie’s marriage life, it is signified in Mrs. Wright and her
quietness. As explained above, she, at the last, unexpectedly kills her husband
with the way that her husband had done to her only friend, the bird, as a
“burst-action” of all her pains in marriage. The bird itself is a symbolism of
Minnie’s characters and life when she was a girl, such as her hobby in singing,
her cheerful character. The writer discover this by noticing Mrs. Hale’s dialogue, “She--come to think of it,
she was kind of like a bird herself--real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid
and--fluttery. How--she--did—change. (Glaspell 1916)
Then, an assumption comes in the writer’s mind that Minnie Wright has some
kinds of mental or psychological motives as an effect from the feelings of oppression
as same as Margaret Hossack’s case. As a comparison because Trifles was inspired by the murder of John
Hossack case, the writer finds that the case shocked the society, because the
murder is a woman in her role as a wife, as on an emphasizing citation from a
paper by Linda Ben-Zvi:
Women
who kill evoke fear because they challenge societal constructs of femininity,
passivity, restraint, and nurture; thus the rush to isolate and label the
female offender, to cauterize the act. Her behavior must be aberrant, or
crazed, if it is to be explicable. And explicable it must be; her crime cannot
be seen as societally-driven if the cultural stereotypes are to remain
unchallenged. (Ben-Zvi
1992, 141)
Ben-Zvi’s statement clarifies that
the oppression also comes from the society because it has constructed the
“label” or “stereotype” of how women should behave. Then, it depicts how cruel
the society for it cannot be blame as the cause of women’s oppression and tells
that women involved in crime are crazy or insane as explanation of their
behaviors. In another words, it was a sin for a woman to rebel or express their
feelings. In short, woman who did criminal things for defend herself from
something oppressing her was unacceptable or extraordinary. On the other hand,
it was commonly received that women, in their roles as daughters, housewives,
or mothers, should be obey, patient, soft, and passive. Moreover, Glaspell draws an effect of woman’s
rebellion toward norms at that period. Indeed, it is all because the society
had formed in women’s mind that it is natural to have an ordinary life in
marriage, such as being a “servant’ for their husbands and has no own life,
except marriage life.
Here, the writer finds
a prove that Minnie Wright’s imprisonment, loneliness, and oppression comes from
her marriage during thirty years. The play shows how cheerful she is before the
marriage. Reading and analyzing the play carefully, the writer draws a conclusion
that Minnie’s oppression is a result of her loneliness after the marriage
imprisons her for such a long time (thirty years). As imprisonment, loneliness,
and oppression connected each other, Glaspell creates these themes in an
one-act play named Trifles modified
from a true case of John Hossack who is murdered by his own wife. The
imprisonment in marriage life causes loneliness, then loneliness causes
oppression, which at that last, bursts and triggers Minnie Wright to kill her
husband which is unexpected, unacceptable and extraordinary at that time. It is
all because women were constructed and stereotyped by society to be in passive
side. Therefore, woman’s imprisonment, loneliness and oppression as the effects
of marriage in Glaspell’s Trifles that
also happened in real life and become a trigger of a murder of a husband by his
wife.
Bibliography
Angel, Marina. www.aals.org.
http://www.aals.org/profdev/women/angel.html (accessed June 27, 2013).
Asianti, Dwi Anggara.
"Women Power to End the Oppressions of Patriarchy in Susan Glaspell Play
"Trifles"." LANGUAGE CIRCLE, Journal of Language and
Literature (Semarang State University) VI (April 2012).
Ben-Zvi, Linda.
""Murder, She Wrote": The Genesis of Susan Glaspell's
"Trifles" ." Theatre Journal (The Johns Hopkins
University Press Stable ) 44, no. 2 (May 1992): 141-162.
Chung, Kathy. K. Y.
""A Different Kind of the Same Thing": Narrative, Experiential
Knowledge, and Subjectivity in Susan Glaspell's Trifles and Sharon Pollock's
Blood Relations." Theatre Research in Canada 20 (Fall 1999).
Glaspell, Susan. www.itech.fgcu.edu.
1916. http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/glaspell.htm (accessed
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gradesaver.com/trifles.
http://www.gradesaver.com/trifles/study-guide/major-themes/ (accessed June
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gradesaver.com/trifles.
http://www.gradesaver.com/trifles/study-guide/major-themes/ (accessed June 6,
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wikipedia.com/Trifles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifles (accessed June
23, 2013).
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