Trifles by Susan Glasspell

Trifles, By Susan Glaspell

Susan Glaspell's Trifles, begins in gloomy, messy kitchen in a now abandoned rural farmhouse. While a cold winter wind blows outside, Henry Peters, the sheriff, George Henderson, the attorney prosecuting the case and Lewis Hale, a neighbor, enter the house. They’ve come to investigate the murder of the farm’s owner, John Wright, who was apparently strangled to death while he slept by his wife, Minnie, who has been taken into custody.

Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale follow the men into the kitchen but they hesitate just inside the door, in the kitchen. They are obviously quite disturbed by what has happened in the house and proceed with more caution than their husbands. Mr. Hale discovered the murder the day before, begins to explain that on his way into town he stopped at the Wright farmhouse to see if they wanted to share a telephone line with him, since they were neighbors. The farmer admits that he didn’t think John would be interested, since he didn’t like to talk much and didn’t seem to care about what his wife might want. Early that morning, when he arrived at the farmhouse he found Minnie rocking nervously in a chair, pleating her apron. When he asked to see her husband, she quietly told Lewis that he "’He died of a rope round his neck," says she, and just went on pleatin' at her apron.”

He called the sheriff and when he arrived the two men found John just as his wife described him. She claimed that someone had strangled him in the middle of the night without disturbing her. ‘‘I sleep sound,’’ was the explanation she gave to her shocked neighbor. Mr. Henderson suggested the men should look around the house for clues, beginning with the bedroom upstairs and the barn outside. The Sheriff dismissed the kitchen where Minnie was sitting, suggesting there is ‘‘nothing here but kitchen things.’’ This was followed by a discussion about Minnie’s worries about her preserves and which ended with Lewis Hale saying ‘‘well, women are used to worrying over trifles.’’ This callous exchange highlights one of Glaspell’s most important themes in the play, the differences between the sexes.

When the men go upstairs to continue their investigation, the two women begin to gather a few things to take to Minnie, which gives them a chance to speak privately, Mrs. Hale remembers her friend from years ago, before she married John. ‘‘She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster” but since marrying John, she had become quite the opposite. Under his roof, Minnie no longer socialized, and her gay party attire turned to drab, functional house clothes. While the men search for evidence of a specific incident that must have sparked the murder. The women are finding small signs of detachment and frustration everywhere—a loaf of bread left outside a breadbox, a table partly cleaned, and a piece