"Trifles" by Susan Glaspell: Drama critical essay

Essay by tjryuUniversity, Bachelor'sB, April 2007

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Drama Critical EssayThe story, "Trifles", written by Susan Glaspell, revolves around a murder committed in a midwestern farmhouse. The story focuses on a case where Mrs. Wright is accused of murdering her husband. The hardships, which the women in the story face, represent the discrimination women receive from men.

Mr. Wright destroyed all of Mrs. Wright's motivations and dreams in life, through the lack of love and attention. In the early parts of the story I was given an image of Mr. and Mrs. Wright having a healthy marriage and later realized that there was many difficulties the two were facing. Mrs. Wright was left to feel like she had a void in her life. Mr. Wright deprived Mrs. Wright of everything that a woman would need in life and he made her feel like she had no purpose in life.

Mrs. Wright in due course bought a canary because she thought this bird would be her way of escaping from reality or maybe fill the void of never having a child.

The canary grew to be very important to her and in a way symbolized her feelings and dreams. There was a comparison made by Mrs. Hale saying that Mrs. Wright was in a way just like a canary. When the bird would sing, it would remind Mrs. Wright from when she was in the church choir. The bird was eventually became the one thing that kept her going in the world of neglect and lack of appreciation. When Mr. Wright wrung her bird's neck, Mrs. Wright's bottled up emotions from all those years of neglect exploded and she took revenge on her husband for killing her one joy in life. Mrs. Wright avenged her canary by strangling Mr. Wright's neck just the same way her...