Self-Assessment on “Trifles” You will get points for completing ALL the questions below. The point of this exercise is for you to test your understanding of the play and try out some interpretations of it. You will see comments on each question

· showing you (in the case of a factual question) whether your answer is right or wrong and

· offering (in the case of questions that ask for interpretations—where answers may vary) some possible answers.

It’s great if you get all the questions “right,” but why should you get points if you get some wrong? And why do you get NO points if you don’t answer all the questions!? Because part of the job of a student and a teacher is to find out what puzzles or troubles a student and then clear it up. So be sure to answer all the questions!

From reviewing the clues that Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale have, what do you infer (figure out) to answer the following questions?

1. Who murdered Mr. Wright?

[HS1] 2. What was the “straw that broke the camel’s back”? That is, what incident was the immediate cause of the murder?[HS2]

3. What were the deeper, long-term causes of the murder?[HS3]

“Trifles” includes information about the murder of John Wright; but the action is about Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale figuring out who did the murder and why and what to do about it. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are upright, law-abiding women, but by the end of the play they illegally withhold probable evidence of motive.

4. Give at least two reasons why Mrs. Peters is initially less sympathetic to Mrs. Wright than Mrs. Hale.[HS4]

5. Give two occasions when Mrs. Peters shows her sympathy for Mrs. Wright.[HS5]

In 1916, when “Trifles” was written, women in the U.S. could not vote and in most states could not serve on juries. In 1917, Glaspell made a short story out of the play and called it “A Jury of Her Peers.”

6What sense does the title “A Jury of Her Peers” make?[HS6]

Irony is “the use of words to suggest a meaning that is the opposite of the literal meaning” (p. 1798). Why is the title “Trifles” ironic[HS7] ?

7. In the Glossary in The Bedford Introduction to Drama, “symbolism” is defined as “a literary device in which an object, event or action is used to suggest a meaning beyond its literal meaning”(p. 1801). Give one example of symbolism in “Trifles,” explaining what the literal meaning is and what the figurative/symbolic meaning is. [HS8]

8. As the list of Characters at the beginning of the play shows, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are the only people in the play whose first names we don’t know. Why do you think Glaspell might have chosen to omit their first names? (Notice that Mrs. Hale mentions Mrs. Wright’s name Minnie Foster when she was a girl[HS9] .)

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[HS1]Minnie Foster Wright

[HS2]John Wright wrings the neck of the canary.

[HS3]Wright’s silent, money-pinching ways in a childless marriage in a lonely gloomy setting drain the life out of Mrs. Wright who loved to sing and loved the canary she bought cheaply from the peddler a year before.

[HS4]She has only met Mrs. Wright when she is arrested and doesn’t realize how she has changed. She is married to the Sheriff.

[HS5] She doesn’t stop Mrs. Hale when she changes the quilting stiches, and she doesn’t mention the dead bird to the men, and she backs up Mrs. Hale’s lie about the cat killing the canary (even though she knows Mrs. Wright didn’t have a cat). Although she tries to insist they really don’t KNOW anything for sure, she empathizes with Mrs. Wright when she remembers a boy killing her kitten and the stillness after her first child died. She tries to hide the box as they leave, although Mrs. Hale finally stuffs it in her pocket.

[HS6]In this setting, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters become a jury when they find and piece together the evidence of Minnie killing her husband, and they acquit her by hiding the evidence. At this time, there was no chance that an actual jury would include women. And the insensitivity of the men to the concerns and feelings of the women show it’s unlikely a jury of men would find mitigating circiumstances, as they do.

[HS7]The men look for evidence on the scene but the county attorney doesn’t bother with relationships. The women look at little things and find motives—what Henderson needs to convict. The women understand the meaning of the jars of fruit, the ragged stitches and the importance of the bird.

[HS8]The bird becomes symbolic of Minnie—her love of singing and timid, fluttery manner, according to Mrs. Hale. Mr. Wright kills the bird by literally wringing its neck, but he has figuratively drained the life from Minnie.

Minnie wrings her husband’s neck—as he has killed her bird—even though there is a gun in the house.

The fruit jars symbolize the hard work and good housekeeping of Mrs. Wright.

[HS9]People were more formal, less likely to use first names—especially to women-- at the time of the play.

Once a woman got married, her life was drawn into the circle of her husband’s life, including the loss of her name.