Trifles Essay, Research Paper

ESSAY 2

Throughout time women have broken off the shorter end of the stick against men. Even when women have been correct and justified in their opinions, they have often been ignored and had their opinions and thoughts vanquished. Sometimes men will amuse women by taking their thoughts into consideration, but many times the real essence of what a woman says is lost in the rolling of eyes and laughter or scorn of men. How many times do husbands ask for directions when their wives have told them they are lost? This may seem a trivial episode, but underlying it is superiority felt by men towards women. However men do not realize that their own conceit holds them back, and does not bring them to higher ground. In order to counter this, women tend to keep to themselves in many cases, knowing their opinions will not be considered. In the drama Trifles it is many times nuances and innuendos, and not facts, that the women use to express their thoughts. In this way women will often know the truth quietly, while men will think they know the truth loudly.

In the beginning of the play, the County Attorney remarks upon how dirty the towels in the kitchen are. To him, the towels are just that, towels. They do not indicate to him anything about the way of life in which Mr. And Mrs. Wright lived. He cannot see such indicators because he does not look for them. He does not look for them because he does not know how to. He is not sensitive to the goings on in the household. However, when Mrs. Hale defends Mrs. Wright, Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men s hands aren t always as clean as they might be , the County Attorney brushes her off as simple loyalty to her sex. The Attorney is missing a clue in the towel. However Mrs. Hale is quick to note that a dirty towel could mean an abusive husband. Without saying that Mr. Wright was abusive, Mrs. Hale says that his hands aren t as clean, or his manner isn t as correct, as it might be. Maybe the dirty towels are like a dirty secret held by the Wright s. However, Mrs. Hale knows if she said the truth outright, it would have less of a chance of coming out then if she let the men think they discovered it for themselves.

Later Mrs. Hale is noting the sneakiness of searching the house with Mrs. Wright not there make it more red-up , and in effect getting the house to work against her. Of course, the house search was the men s idea. What Mrs. Hale is really implying is that perhaps deep down the men know the truth. They know that Mr. Wright beat Mrs. Wright, and that she killed him for it. However, the men are so unwilling to admit their own sex is in the wrong, that they would rather use the untidy house to make Mrs. Wright look bad.

It is evident that the final straw causing Mrs. Wright to kill her husband came with him killing her bird. To Mrs. Wright, the bird symbolized herself. She was trapped in the cage of marriage, as the bird was trapped in a literal cage. Mrs. Wright loved that bird, but Mr. Wright hated its singing, and so he wrung its neck. In turn Mrs. Wright wrung his neck. Without ever saying that Mrs. Wright strangled her husband, the women conclude concretely that that is what occurred. Of course the men take not a second glance at the birdcage. Mrs. Hale comments that it would be awful still after the bird was still. This was the final emotional pull it took for Mrs. Wright to kill her husband.

The county Attorney and sheriff go noisily through the house looking for hard signs of evidence to which there is none. They do not go into the house not knowing who the killer was; in their hearts they know it was Mrs. Wright. But they had to make her look bad by commenting on her dirty house etc., rather than face up to the fact that she killed out of self-defense against an abusive husband. Even when given the most obvious clue about knotting the quilt, the men did not care to acknowledge the reason behind Mrs. Wright s anger. The women use nothing but trivial contexts in this drama to mask their own discovery and understanding of the murder, while the men know the murderer without being able in their righteousness to understand the crime.