Character Analysis on the Play "Trifles" By Susan Glaspell

Character Analysis on the Play "Trifles" By Susan Glaspell
The play trifles by Susan Glaspell portrays Mrs. Hale as being loyal, intuitive, and reserved. Mrs. Hale is the wife of Lewis, a chauvinistic man. This makes Mrs. Hale timid and afraid of voicing her opinion given the patriarchal nature of the society in which she resides. She is among other women oppressed by the self-important nature of their husbands (Arp and Johnson 1042). Mrs. Hale commits a serious crime in concealing evidence for the murder of John by his wife. However, Mrs. Hale thinks that the crime is justifiable. According to Gainor (42), Mrs. Hale plays a huge role in the play as she elucidates the nature in which women were alienated and isolated in the American society. As a youth, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Wright were close friends and this attests to the loyalty that makes Mrs. Hale decide to conceal murder evidence. This essay will analyze the character of Mrs. Hale in Trifles.
The character of Mrs. Hale

  According to Gainor (39), Trifles is a play by Susan Glaspell set when there was inequality between the man and the woman in the American society. Susan Glaspell reveals that women were repressed, considered dumb, emotionally and physically abused by the men. Mrs. Hale is among the women who faced the discrimination that made them to only take part in the domestic chores. Like Mrs. Wright, Mrs. hale is timid and can only do something after instructions from the husband. Similar to Mrs. Wrights marriage, the marriage of Mrs. Hale is marred with constant wrangles and his husband does not provide her with the emotional warmth she craves for. This development compels Mrs. Hale to find solace in the company of other women in an attempt to quell boredom (Gainor 41).
The second-class citizen treatment given to the women make Mrs. Hale to concentrate on household chores such as cleaning, sweeping and cooking. On the other hand, the men have significant jobs and posses thoughts that are deemed relevant by the then patriarchal American society. Mrs. Hales friends such as Mrs. Wright have a daily routine characterized by boredom. The form of resignation elucidated by Mrs. Hale and her friends make them focus on trivial matters (Keller 11).
According to Russell (89), discrimination against women is deeply entrenched in this community as revealed by the remarks made by the courts attorney when he pays a visit the murder sight. The attorney makes demeaning remarks by claiming that Mrs. Wright was not a good housekeeper. Such attacks make Mrs. Hale and her friends fail to reveal the evidence that they had on the murder case. The resigned nature of Mrs. Hale is also illuminated by the fact that she decided to keep quiet after assessing how women were deemed unimportant in this male dominated society. Particularly, the men go upstairs to look for extra evidence despite the fact that the women have all the evidence concerning the murder (Russell 88).
Generally, the unfair treatment given to Mrs. Hale and her fellow women makes them desist from playing very important roles in the society. This treatment also makes them become more cunning as seen in the play where they hide information regarding the murder of Mr. Wright. The chauvinist society does not give the women a chance to express themselves and this resigns them to domestic chores notwithstanding the great potential they have to solve the problems facing the society (Holstein 285).
In Trifles, Mrs. Hales intuitive nature makes her pay attention to little things which enable her to be in a position  to solve big problems affecting the society. Holstein (286) reveals that intuition makes the women in the play to focus on trivial matters. Nevertheless, the focus on little matters gives Mrs. Hale an upper hand in solving several problems in the play. The men in the play do not realize that Mrs. Hale and her female friends solve the murder of Mr. Wright by focusing on very trivial issues which have been dubbed trifles by Susan Glaspell.
Mrs. Hale resents the fact that the men seems disturbed by the extent into which the women focus on trivial matters. As the men are carrying out their investigations, the women are busy looking at the quilt. Particularly, Mrs. Hale asserts that the messy sewing done by Mrs. Wright was a sign of nervousness. Her friend tries to defend Mrs. Wright by claiming that her sewing becomes messy once she becomes tired (Maillakais).
Despite the intuitive nature of Mrs. Hale, the men are disturbed by the extent to which women spend most of their time focusing on trivial matters. The focus on whether to piece the quilt reveals the character of Mrs. Hale as highly intuitive. She wonders whether the knot or quilt the birdcage. Furthermore, Mrs. Hale pays attention as to why the birdcage has been stuffed without a bird in it. She asks whether the Wrights had cats for pets but she is answered that Mrs., Wright was very superstitious and would never keep cats as pets (Arp and Johnson 1042).
When the men come downstairs, the county attorney wants to know whether the bird that was locked in the cage has flown. He is informed that the cat had eaten it. The men had no time to question over the existence of the cat despite the women knowing that there was no cat in the house of the Wrights. Mrs. hale also asks questions about the broken door hinge in the house of the wrights. She posits that someone might have been rough with it (Maillakais).
The example above shows her intuitive nature given that the men had not taken time to notice that the hinge had been tampered with. Mrs. Hale had also noticed how it was hard to be around Mrs. Wrights husband. She claims that Mr. Wright was a difficult man. On the other hand, she claims that Mrs. Wright was fluttery, timid, pretty, and sweet as a bird. However, the Mrs. Wright depicted in the play and by other character is a cold woman who has few roles in life and has no children with the birds being her only company (Maillakais).
When Mrs. Hale looks for the scissors and fabric patchwork, she comes across a box with a red silk wrapping. The wrapping is a bird, which makes her to exclaim the neck of the bird is on the other side. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale conclude that Mrs. Wright had indeed killed her husband but they do not want to break the female alliance that is important in the patriarchal society (Gainor 42).
The focus on the trivial details enables Mrs. Hale and her friend to solve the murder case. Further, Mrs. Hale and company are able to outsmart men who overlooked small details in trying to solve the murder. In addition, the men authority do not seem to recognize the wit possessed by Mrs. Hale and the importance of it in solving societal problems. Generally, Mrs. Hales intuition enables her to perfectly determine the personality of the Wrights (Gainor 43).
Mrs. Hale has been depicted as loyal to her friends especially the female friends with whom she faces the predicament of routine discrimination. Mrs. Hale stands by Mrs. Wrights notwithstanding that everybody else (especially the men) would decide to lock her up forever for the apparent murder of her husband. Her loyalty to Mrs. Wright is depicted by the nature in which she defends her from the verbal attacks meted on her by the county attorney who claims that she is poor in housekeeping. This loyalty is hard to come by in a society where almost all the women allowed the men to say whatever they deemed correct about the women (Maillakais).
Mrs. Hales loyalty to Mrs. Wright is also shown  when she defend her by stating that she did not believe that she had the capacity to kill the husband. Despite different opinion from Mrs. Peters who states that the county attorney would notice the conspiracy, Mrs. Hale argues that nobody would blame her since there was no direct evidence. As opposed to Mrs. Peters who can easily be cowed by the domineering nature of the men, Mrs. Hale goes full throttle when defending women from the excesses of the men (Maillakais).
Gainor (41) reveals that Mrs. Hale is easily offended when men laugh at the women for dwelling on trifles. She vehemently opposes the move by Mrs. Peters to defend the men accusing her of not standing up for the women, which makes the men to make them feel inferior. In order to get back at the men for being unfair to the women, Mrs. Hale is determined to conceal all the available evidence that can solve the murder mystery. In defending her friend, Mrs. Hale claims the Mr. Wright was a difficulty man whereas the wife was a good woman who carried out her duties perfectly.
Mrs. Hale claims that women are their own enemy who cannot stand up for one another in the face of problems but would rather criticize their peers. She claims the women should be loyal to one another as they are going through similar experiences as mothers and career women. The bird is the only evidence the men would have used against Mrs. Wright but Mrs. Hale is quick to conceal it by putting it in the pocket. Generally, the loyalty stems from the sympathy the women have for Mrs. Wright. They conceal the evidence they have against her (Holstein 286).
In summary, the character of Mrs. Hale is well articulated. She plays a vital role as the murder case revolves around Mrs. Wright, who was her close friend. In the play, Mrs. Hale has been depicted as a reserved, loyal, and intuitive character. She is the wife of Lewis Hale, who like all other men, has the say in all matters in the family. Hence, Mrs. Hale has been rendered timid and incapable of voicing her opinions however important. She can only mobilize the women to be loyal in order to deal with the excesses of the men.
 Mrs. Hale is oppressed by the patriarchal nature of the society, which makes her to commit a serious crime in concealing the evidence that would have solved the murder of Mr. Wright. Nevertheless, she thinks that the crime was justified as she claims that the deceased was a very difficult person to stay with and that the wife must have been provoked in to committing a crime of such magnitude. She plays a vital role as she reveals the nature in which the women were oppressed in the American society. They were close friends with Mrs. Wright as youths and this is the main source of loyalty shown by Mrs. Hale.














Works Cited
Arp, Thomas R and Greg Johnson. Perrine's Literature:Structure, Sounds, and Sense. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2012.
Gainor, J. Ellen. Susan Glaspell in Context: American Theater, Culture,and Politics, 1915-48. Michigan : University of Michigan Press, 2004.
Holstein, Suzy Clarkson. "Silent justice in a different key: Glaspell's "trifles"." The Midwest Quarterly 44.3 (2003): 282-290.
Keller, Mathias. Symbolic Realism in Susan Glaspell's 'Trifles'. Munich: GRIN Verlag, 2007.
Maillakais, Mikes. A Woman's Place:Literary Background for Glaspell's Trifles. n.d. Web. 19 April 2013.
Russell, Judith Kay. "Glaspell's Trifles." The Explicator 55.2 (1997): 88-90.