The Assumptions About Women Throughout the Play Trifles
by Throughout the early 1900s women were basically seen as objects of possession and did not have very much freedom once they were married. Once women were married “the husband has the power of life and death over his wife, at least within certain limits and under certain circumstances” (Westermarck 408). In the circumstance of the play “Trifles”, Mr. Wright basically had power over his wife, and from what Mrs. Hale said on page 774, about it not seeming like a happy place, must mean that Mr. Wright wasn’t all that great of a husband.The women throughout this play fight these assumptions and prove that they deserve to be as equal as men in society.
This is true because a women in the early 1900s “wakes up each morning with the thought heavy on her heart and brain that she has more to accomplish in the next twelve hours than one head and two hands were ever intended to do” (Harrison 198), and a companionship would help her get through the day. By having a bird as a pet, Mrs. Wright had a companion while she did her daily chores, and she wasn’t always alone. The fact that the bird was dead with a broken neck signifies that the husband must have been irritated with the bird and killed it. This would give Mrs. Wright a motive to kill Mr. Wright because he had killed her companion.
The fact that there was food and bread left out on the counter in a mess shows that something sudden must have happened. Back in the early 1900s women were responsible for cleaning the house and making sure everything was put away and cleaned, but the fact that nothing had been put away or cleaned showed that something must have happened suddenly and kept her from cleaning up. Another clue the women found was that there was a poor stitch in the quilt, and this is a helpful clue because if Mrs. Wright had done well on the stitching up until that point, something must have set her off in some way to cause her to mess up on her stitching. The final and most conclusive clue was the way that she was knotting her quilt. The knots she used were very complex, and this would allow her to have the capability to make the noose that Mr. Wright was strangled to death with. The two wives found enough incriminating evidence to put Mrs. Wright in jail, although their husbands ignored some of the evidence and said they were noticing unimportant things they still accepted some of it and Mrs. Wright was charged with the murder.
Throughout the Play “Trifles” the men made many different assumptions about women. One of the first assumptions the three men made about the women in this play was about Mrs. Wright and how she was a poor housekeeper because the food was left out on the tables. They just assumed that she was a poor housekeeper instead of thinking that maybe those things were left out by accident due to the sudden happening of the murder.
Another assumption the men made about women throughout this play was while they were searching throughout the house for clues relating to the murder. While the men were having trouble trying to find clues, the two wives found plenty of evidence that proved Mrs. Wright’s guilt. Although the women found all this evidence, their husbands just ignored most it when the County Attorney says, “Oh, I guess they’re not very dangerous things the ladies have picked out” (Glaspell 781-143). The men were in so much denial that most of the evidence their wives found was unimportant, they decided to stay longer than they needed to, to continue to go throughout the house looking for evidence. While the three men continue to make assumptions about women throughout the play, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are using their knowledge to find evidence from the murder. These two women challenge just about every assumption that the men made about them because, granted they are examining very small pieces of evidence, but that’s what it takes to find evidence of a murder.
The clues will not just be staring you in the face, and even though the women basically do the man’s job in this situation a lot of the clues they found the men ignored, except for the knotting of the quilt.
Throughout the play the women slowly find clue after clue, and although the men find proof in one clue they disregard many of the others. The men just disregard these clues because they assume that the women are just noticing unimportant information. Even though the men made many assumptions about women throughout this play they also feed into some of the things the women are saying and use this information to put Mrs. Wright away.
Liked it
