Trifles

Trifles was definitely a short, but still intriguing, play written by Susan Glaspell depicting a woman whose husband is found dead. I think this play sort of delved into how little unhappy things in a person's life could have them acting unpredicatable and allowing bad things to happen. In Trifles, Mr. John Wright turns up dead in his home, and his wife is found in a far-off state, sitting in a chair and simply pleating her apron as she's questioned about where her husband is and how he turned up strangled without her noticing it at all. Upon first reading, I had no doubt that Mrs. Wright killed her husband and I felt no pity about her being in her distant state and hoped she'd be carried off and served her justice. But then, when Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are talking about what happened and the circumstances, my opinion began to change. They talk about her fruit and how Mrs. Wright would be uspet if something happened to that, then they talk about quilting, and then they talk about whether or not she owned a canary upon discovering a birdcage. Upon them discussing these simple and trivial things, it becomes more clear within Glaspell's Trifles that little, ordinary things cane play a major role in someone developing unhappiness, especially considering that Mr. Wright wasn't the easiest man to live with. With all these constant, boring things becoming the center of Mrs. Wright's world, and mixed with her hard husband, I felt that it was no wonder everything negative built up until it finally exploded, resulting in Mr. Wright's death. I know me personally, although I certainly wouldn't resort to killing, or having someone kill for me, can understand how simple things can build up, annoy, and only increase the frustration. Especially if your forced to be around them every single hour of every single day. So after reading Trifles, my opinion definitely changed. I don't think that killing her husband was the answer to ending her unhappiness, but I do understand how maybe Mrs. Wright thought that the only way to escape her unsatisfactory, simple lifestyle was to get rid of the true source behind it all. That sort of thing happens frequently in today's time, where women see ridding themselves of their partners to be the only solution to the world they cannot escape. So, overall, Trifles was very much an accurate description of how ordinary things can escalate into ultimate tragedy.