Susan Glaspell's Play Trifles

The story, "Trifles", written by Susan Glaspell, is about a murder committed in a Midwestern farmhouse. The story focus's on two main cases of revenge led by women against men. Revenge may be used to satisfy someone for the harm that was done to them and it can be used as Mrs. Wright did with her husband, John Wright.

Mrs. Wright's husband destroyed all of her motivations in life, because of lack of love, attention, and careness. Mrs. Wright felt like she had a void in her life, as the reader of the story, I pictured Mr. and Mrs. Wright as having a good relationship in the beginning and eventually it became worse and worse until neither of them could handle it anymore. I think that they both thought they were made in some way to stay with each other, not to separate, but they had to do something because the tension in there relationship was so strong now. Mr. Wright denied everything that a woman would need in life and he made Mrs. Wright feel like she was not alive in this world.

Mrs. Wright eventually bought a canary because she thought this bird would be her only true love. The canary was the last part of her spirit and somehow expressed her feelings and dreams. When the bird would sing, it would bring a connection to Mrs. Wright from when she was in the choir at church. The bird was the only thing that would keep her alive in the world of mistreatment and lack of appreciation. When Mr. Wright killed her bird, Mrs. Wright got all her anger from all those years of mistreatment and took revenge on her husband for killing her heart and soul. Mrs. Wright killed Mr. Wright because he killed her canary and made the last few years of her life miserable. She felt like she had no point in living anymore because Mr. Wright had broken her heart once again. Mrs. Wright wanted her husband to feel what she and the bird went through while having their soul destroyed day by day. Mrs. Wright killed Mr. Wright the same way he killed her bird, she strangled him.

The second case of revenge in this story is when Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters take revenge on the 'professional' detectives. While the men are upstairs looking for evidence, the women are downstairs trying to get ...