Trifles and Oedipus Rex

Murder without mayhem in "Oedipus Rex" and "Trifles"

Both the dramas "Trifles" and "Oedipus Rex" deal with murders that are committed off stage of close family members, in one case that of a husband, in the other that of a father. Although both Mrs. Wright and Oedipus are guilty of their crimes, however in the first act of "Trifles," gradually it becomes clear as small details are revealed that something was amiss in the relationship of the Wrights, and that Mrs. Wright had just grievances against the man who suppressed her soul, indeed against all men. The men do not understand this, nor of the limited nature of Mrs. Wright's life. For instance, Mrs. Peters says of Mrs. Wright, "she worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire'd go out and her jars would break. The Sheriff scoffs: "Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worrin' about her preserves." (Lines 78-79) This interchange shows how Mrs. Wright's contribution to the household as a cook was ignored, by her husband and now by men of his ilk.

In contrast, "Oedipus Rex" begins with an epic scene, as the tragic protagonist promises the "people of Thebes" that he will discover the cause of the plague, the murderer in their midst of the previous king Laius. He vows to punish the killer, but then the murder is revealed to be his self. He blinds himself as a result. Ironically, this murderer turns out to be Oedipus himself, as he killed his father in a quarrel, in a street, while he was traveling, in a kind of rude act of self-defense.

Does the punishment fit the crime? It is important to remember that the tragedy of Oedipus is not one of punishment, but of the inevitability of fate -- the 'point' of the play is that Oedipus was destined to fulfill this horrific role of a parricide and mother-marrying king, even while he was fleeing the individuals who did raise him, to protect the people he thought were his real mother and father. Even when Oedipus blinds himself, he does it not in punishment for the murder, but because he cannot bear, "he sight of my children, born as they were born, how could I long to look into their eyes? No, not with these eyes of mine, never." He leaves Thebes because he must fulfill the sentence of banishment he passed on himself, even though he discovered the crime was in self-defense. Likewise, over the course of "Trifles," it becomes clear that Mrs. Wright's murder of her husband was an act of frustration, born of a society that devalues woman's contribution to the household as merely a series of trifles. The violently broken birdcage in the now abandoned home becomes a symbol of the woman's fate in prison and a society that still ignores her true, thwarted nature.