Exploration of the Text : Trifles (Q2, Q3, & Q4)

2. What clues lead the women to conclude that Minnie Wright killed her husband?

At first, women started to develop their clues by getting known Minnie’s background closely. Before married with John Wright, she is well known as Minnie Foster. She used to be a happy, appeared with pretty clothes, socialize, and also lively girl who sang in the local choir, but after she married John Wright, her life became unhappy and forlorn. Secondly, Minnie’s canary was died. Her husband kills a part of her as well as the only thing left in her life that gave her beauty and pleasure. The canary was the only thing she had to help her feel better about being solitude and isolated from the world. Lastly, the quilt itself. Women can see the evidence of turmoil in her quilt. They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it. The stitches change. Thus, they actually see the evidence of unhappiness and troubled times everywhere in this house.

3. How do men differ from the women? From each other?

Men differ from the women in their thinking, attitude and emotion.  Things in this play that the women see as important were not important for the men. The men claim that it just another common trifle that the women are concerned about. For example, when the Sheriff reaches up into the cupboard and comes away with a sticky hand, the woman express sadness that her preserves fruit had frozen. Rather than recognizing all the hard work that went into making those preserves, the Sheriff exclaims, "Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worrying' about her preserves". Secondly, the men never once question their way of doing things. They are looking for something "big" in the house, some big clue. The women, on the other hand are looking at the smaller things and thinking about the emotional impact of the smaller things. The men dismiss their methods knowing that they will never find anything that way. Even at the very end, when the men have found nothing, they make fun of the women once again. "Lastly, women rely more on emotions rather than facts, while men do the opposite. Women in this play agreed that the basic sense of self is connected to the world, while the basic of masculine sense of self is separated from it. For example, when Mrs Hale said, “what we need is a motive. Something to show anger of sudden feeling”. Women see their self as interdependent whose moral judgment are tied to feeling and see moral problems as problems of responsibility in relationship. Women’s consciousness could empower women to take actions together which they not take as individuals by sharing their experience. They could act out of a new respect for the value for their lives as women.  In this play, women tend to find the clues and conclude the suspect of the murder.

4. What do the men discover? Why do they conclude “Nothing here but kitchen things”? What do the women discover?

As the play states “Trifles”, the men seem to focusing on the smaller and unimportant elements of the crime scene and just have no time for the women. At first, they went to upstairs, the barn and around the house rather than discover the kitchen. For men, there was nothing important in the kitchen that would point to any motive. Kitchen is just a part of domesticity for women. On the other hand, the women discover the clues by using “the homemaking instinct” and the main reasons why Mrs Wright was killed his husband.

Major Playwrights

            1. William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born on 23^rd April 1564. John Shakespeare and Mary Shakespeare were William’s parents. His father was a successful glover, and town alderman while his mother was coming from Alderman wealthy family. They married in 1557 and had eight children. Only five children survived to adulthood. William was the third children. William was born into a well-to-do middle class family. They were not rich, but successful in business and respected in the community. His parents had a Catholic background which was not safe, because on that particular time, Queen Elizabeth I enforced Protestantism. She had spies who looked for people like the Shakespeare’s who still held onto the “old” beliefs. He grew up in the little country town of Stratford-on-Avon where he went to the local Grammar School and learned the 'small Latin and less Greek' which Ben Jonson attributed to him. Others lesson taught were, dictated primarily by the beliefs of the reigning monarch, debate, social responsibilities, and he had to participate in Drama. Shakespeare was removed from school around age thirteen because of his father's financial and social difficulties. William’s daily activities after he left school and before he re-emerged as a professional actor in the late 1580s are impossible to trace. There were suggestions that he might have worked as a schoolmaster or lawyer or glover with his father and brother. Some arguments also state that Shakespeare studied intensely to become a master at his literary craft, and honed his acting skills while travelling and visiting playhouses outside of Stratford. But, it is from this period known as the "lost years” that we obtain one vital piece of information about Shakespeare which was, he married a pregnant orphan named Anne Hathaway. He had three children.

                                     

                                      Susanna, Hamnet, and Judith Shakespeare

In the 16th Century, he became a great entrepreneur.  He managed 'The Globe' and companies of actors, and that’s where he made the good living for his family. This time was referred as the golden age of English drama. That’s because theater was very popular during that time. His plays were not only being performed in the theater but also at court, not only for Queen Elizabeth but also for her successor, King James 1. He also seems to have been interested in writing poems and he started work on the sonnets. Several works by him :

• The Histories- Henry IV Part 1, 2 and 3, Pericles & King John
• The Comedies – Winter’s Tale, Midsummer Night Dream & As You Like It
• Romance – Romeo & Juliet, The Tempest, & Cymbeline
• The Tragedies- Othello, Hamlet & Macbeth

Shakespeare was very talented in being able to summarize the span of people and emotions. People say he is the most remarkable storyteller. Shakespeare's stories transcend time and culture. Shakespeare created brilliant characters, especially his tragic heroes. in addition,  Shakespeare is deeply admired by actors, playing his characters is considered the most difficult and most greatly outstanding achievement an actor can do. Shakespeare’s expressions are the most commonly used expressions and you may not even know you’re using them. Shakespeare is truly an outstanding human being and has most definitely changed history. 

REFERENCES

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/shakespeareeducation.html

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2. Susan Glaspell

Susan Glaspell was born on 1^st July 1882 in Davenport, lowa, United States. Elmer Glaspell and Alice Keating were Susan’s parents. Her father was a farmer, while her mother was a teacher. Susan lived as the middle class family that was not very-well-off. She attended Davenport public school and graduated from Drake University. She worked as a journalist. Later, after finding that her stories were published in Harper's and the Ladies' Home Journal, Susan Glaspell quit her job as a journalist for the Des Moines Daily News.

In 1915, Susan Glaspell met George Cook, a stage director, and the two moved in together in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The couple decided to join a group of left-wing writers. Basically, left-wing writers are writers who express what society is today and through their writing they show how things should be transformed so that happiness can be achieved by many instead of so few. They believe that property should not be privately owned, but instead should be socially controlled, that this is the solution to unemployment and war. This is the way that writers revolt in society and try to get their point across of a revolution of change. The two, along with several of the left-wring writers, discovered the Provincetown Players in Cape Cod Massechusetts, a group formed of actors, directors, and writers that wanted to perform new and experimental plays.

                                                    

                                                   Proviencetown Playhouse

Much of Glaspell's writing is strongly feminist, dealing with the roles that women play, or are forced to play, in society and the relationships between men and women. In addition, Glaspell's plays argued social and political issues as well as the role women held in society compared to men. Glaspell was passionate about standing up for what she believed was just. Susan wrote over ten plays for the group some including:

• Women's Honour
• Bernice
• Inheritors
• The Verge
• A Jury of Her Peer
• The People
• The Outside

As well as writing plays for the Provincetown Players, Susan Glaspell acted in several of them. Eventually,  Susan Glaspell and George Cook finally got married in 1922. They had a strong marriage even through Susan's miscarriages. After having so many troubles with the Provincetown Players, Susan Glaspell and George Cook left to live in Greece. George Cook suffered from typhus and passed away 14th January, 1924.She wrote Brooke Ecans in 1928 and The Fugitive’s Return in 1929. Susan won the Pulitzer Prize for her book, Allison’s House in 1931.

In the 1930s,  Susan become addicted to alcohol and stopped writing altogehter. She lost so much money through her obsessive that she turned to get her life straightened back out. She became director of the Federal Theater Project, part of the New Deal. She died on 17th July, 1948. The last book Susan Glaspell wrote :

-The Morning is Near Us

-Norma Ashe

-Judd Rankin’s Daughter

            REFERENCES

            http://www.provincetownplayhouse.com/history.html

            http://blogs.shu.edu/glaspellsociety/sample-page/