Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers: thematic comparison

¶ … Susan Glaspell

Minnie Wright: A Mystery Character Pieced Together from "Trifles"

In Susan Glaspell's one act play, "Trifles," and the related story "A Jury of Her Peers," the character of Minnie Wright is continuously scrutinized but never appears. Instead, we learn about Minnie through the many "trifles" or small clues recognized by the two women who accompany the official murder investigation team. The story plays out like a mystery, with Minnie's identity (and motive) as the object. Both the play and the story follow the same pattern, though they go about it with slightly different emphasis. Both texts reach the same end: through the many small pieces of the feminine sphere illustrated in the story -- recognizable by other women as signs to her mental state -- the character of Minnie Wright becomes clear by the end. The mystery put forth in "Trifles" and "A Jury of Her Peers" is in essence a mystery, with the missing character of Minnie Wright pieced together through many seemingly insignificant details.

The story of Minnie Wright, in both the one act play of "Trifles" and the story "A Jury of Her Peers," plays out like a mystery. Clausson points to the strong similarities between Glaspell's two texts and the stories of Edgar Allen Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle; most notably, the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes even refers to his skills as "the observation of trifles" (81). After all, the essence of Minnie Wright's story is the search for a reason. If she is guilty, then why did Minnie Wright murder her husband? In this very basic way, Minnie Wright is the central character in a murder mystery. To solve the mystery, the reader must reconstruct Minnie Wright.

The complication in this task is that Minnie Wright does not appear in either Glaspell's play or story (Noe 36-54). Instead, Minnie Wright is only spoken of and imagined by the other characters in the narratives. Noe explains that this device works well for Glaspell as a writer as the "unseen woman" draws attention to the marginalization of women who are unseen by men in a patriarchal society. Additionally, it overcomes the difficulty in explaining the features and actions of a primary female character without objectifying here (Noe 36-54). Feminist ideas aside, Glaspell's style choice also allows her to create suspense and intrigue since we never get to see or hear Minnie Wright explain herself.

Rather, we must rely on the actions and thoughts of the "seen" characters to recreate the missing Minnie Wright. Most notably, the two women who accompany the formal investigating team are able to piece together who Minnie Wright is through the inspection of the things they find familiar: the "trifles" of the feminine sphere of the rural Midwestern woman in the late 1800s and early 1900s (Hedges 89).

Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale allow us to see Minnie without actually seeing her. Both women share a significant number of life experiences and similar life responsibilities with Minnie. As such, they can see many small things that are nevertheless significant. These insignificant "trifles" include the half-sifted flour (or laid out bread), the preserves, the poorly sewn quilting patch, and the dead canary.

One of the trifles noticed by the women but overlooked by the men was that of the flour / bread. Mustazza points out that this scene contains one of the subtle differences in scene between "Trifles" and "A Jury of Her Peers" (489). In "Trifles," Mrs. Peters mentions that Minnie Wright has set the bread. In "A Jury of Her Peers," however, Glaspell expands on what Mrs. Hale is thinking in a manner that helps the reader to see the connection (Mustazza 489). This is not an option in the play, where it is difficult to insert internal monologues and thoughts. When Glaspell expanded her one act play to story form, she took the opportunity to fill in sections that could benefit from the detail Mrs. Hale's thoughts can offer. Rather than offering a vague comment, the character in the story can offer the insight available through her thoughts, even when they are unspoken.

In this section of the story, Mrs. Hale notices that Minnie Foster left her baking quite abruptly -- half way finished with sifting the flour. She wonders what could have made her stop so suddenly, something she hides from Mrs. Peters to save her the unsettled feeling of work unfinished (Mustazza 489). Without this explanation in the story, the one act play offers only the sparse statement that Minnie Wright set out the bread; even for a trifle, this small note may get passed over in the play, so subtle is the author's offering.

The preserved fruit is another section where the reader can learn about the state of mind of Minnie Wright, as well as other homesteading women in the Midwest during this period. The isolation that Minnie lived in made her hyperconscious of her work. She had a great amount of responsibility and little to no kinship, since Mr. Wright did not allow her to be involved locally and did not even own a telephone (Glaspell). In this intense isolation, Minnie is very aware that her preserved fruit is at risk through the cold that would fill the house in her absence. To the police this, like the other items the women notice, is a trifle. However, Minnie's relayed concern that her preserves have been ruined is instantly understood by the other two women; both the play and the story include the women expressing "what a shame" it is that all of Minnie's hard work was for nothing (Mustazza 489).

So difficult to understand was Minnie's concern over her preserves that one of the men comments that women are too concerned with "trifles," giving the play its name (Hedges 89). The significance of this word as the title of the play, on which the story was based, is that the small things are not trifles. Here, though her husband is dead and she is in prison, Minnie Wright is concerned for her preserves for a reason. In an attempt to solve the mystery of Minnie Wright, it is necessary to figure out why she is so concerned about the preserves. The reader can learn the answer by observing the other women. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters show the readers that the total isolation in which Minnie Wright was living gave her nothing else to be concerned for (Heges 89).

In light of Minnie's concerns for her preserves, the poorly sewn quilt patch is very alarming. When a women is so wrapped up in her household responsibilities that she is more concerned with her preserves that her current position in the town jail, then surely she would pay great attention to all of her other chores and responsibilities as well. However, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find the poorly sewn quilt patch and can recognize that Minnie Wright was beginning to lose control of herself. The necessary patience and skill needed to sew properly had obviously begun to elude Minnie.

Hedges argues that the two women share a "spark" of recognition when looking at the patch, as if both understand immediately that the quilt patch represented the unraveling of Minnie Wright's stability (89). Mrs. Hales even begins to sew where Minnie left off, trying to make the whole situation better by completing the undone or poorly done task that Minnie left behind. This allows the reader to see how, really, Minnie was not so different from these other women (Hedges 89).

One of the final trifling clues exists in the dead bird found wrapped up in cloth. The bird is important both as a motive for murder and as a plot device. Both women recognize that the bird was wrapped with care and that Minnie had obviously love it dearly (Glaspell). The women realize that the bird has been strangled and are able to put together the horrible chain of events that must have taken place; remembering that Minnie had been a singer in the church choir before she married and her husband disallowed it, the women imply a comparison between Minnie and the strangled bird. Like the bird, Minnie's husband had choked the life out of her through forced solitude (Holstein 282).

All of the tiny trifles combined with the women's personal background and memories of Minnie and her husband to give them a good view of what the household was like before the murder. Both women borrow from their own experiences as rural housewives to fill in the feelings and issues that Minnie must have been dealing with. For example, the women discuss their own experiences with living in a quiet, childless household, and with the brutal killing of a loved pet (Noe 36). They also remember the little facts that completely allude the investigators, including Minnie's fear of cats (Holstein 282).

It is this lack of knowledge of the investigator's part, which makes the overall mystery intriguing to follow. In the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, Holmes is often working alongside Scotland Yard to solve a crime. Holmes always solves the crime, and that fact is very satisfying to the reader. Similarly, the two women are inadvertently unearthing the clues to the murder alongside the searching investigators. Glaspell endears us to the two women through the use of personal experiences and memories. Through their similarities, the two women also endear the reader to Minnie Wright. This closeness in character makes it perfectly acceptable when the women lie to the investigators about the bird and the cat, as well as when they stay quiet at the end of the narratives (Holstein 282).

As the story unfolds, the reader becomes keenly aware of the emotional abuse and frightening loneliness that Minnie Wright was facing. Because her character has been flushed out through the use of the tiny things in her life, the reader can solve the mystery of Minnie Wright. We not only know why she murdered her husband, but we understand it and, as much as can be expected, sympathize with her situation (Russell 88-90).

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters lie to the investigating men because they understand and sympathize as well. They see the dead bird and know that its existence will not help Minnie's plight; instead, they know that the men would take the dead bird and the resulting murder as another example of women reacting to trifles (Russell 88). Ironically, the fact that the men do not value the opinions of women is the very reason that the truth and motive in the murder eludes them. Holstein points out that the unvalued status of women in the rural Midwestern society allows the women the ppwer to remain quiet (282).