Trifles Dead Bird - Essay Example

The Dead Bird, from Trifles by Susan From this book, the undermining of women’s roles is a main theme that presents itself. From the play, we gather that there is a group of characters gathered at the Wright’s with an aim of gathering a piece of evidence that is supposed to help with the verdict of Mrs Wright. The belief that women are undermined is presented first when the groups of characters are in the kitchen (Glaspell, 202). The sheriff makes a statement that implies that it is not worth checking with the kitchen and refers to the things in the kitchen as ‘kitchen things’.

In the play, the sheriff also implies that one can beat a woman up. Mrs. Peters points to a broken jar that the author refers to as preserves. From this, the sheriff wonders how a woman can worry about her preserves while she is facing murder charges. The sheriff, from this statement implies that there are certain things that only a woman needs to worry about. The preserves symbolize anything that women worry about more than men. At some point, the women also commented on the tidiness of the house.

Well, men in the society from this play do not pay attention to such things and are always complaining of a messy house (Glaspell, 202). Mrs. Wright’s husband seemed to displease her. The mistakes her husband made, ‘trifles’ were considered among the reasons for her wanting to kill her husband. On another instance, the author expresses her belief that on marriage, a woman loses her identity, and becomes what her husband is. This is seen in the play when the County attorney says that a sheriff’s wife is married to the law.

The sheriff’s wife is Mrs. Peters. Mrs. Wright is described as jovial and one who loves to wear colorful clothing. However, on marriage she becomes the opposite. The untidy state of her house is reflected to her husband. In the play, the ladies also share a belief with the men that they are of little importance. It is also observed from the play that women did not share trivial issues with the men. The men did not see value in whatever opinions they held. The women thought that if they shared their thoughts with the men they would be laughed at.

They also considered their opinions as trifles. On the search for evidence, the women discussed minor issues that would collect up to substantial evidence. The men, however, were looking for a major piece of evidence since they considered the minor pieces as trifles. The women even had doubts that the trifles would solve the crime due to the little value put on them by the men. The fact that Mrs. Wright would sing when the bird sang shows the attachment she had with it. Her husband, however, killed the bird.

On the issues the women discussed, the bird’s neck had been wrung just like the neck of Mr. Wright had (Ibsen, 56). Mrs. Hale also explains how jovial Mrs. Wright was, and how she had grown gloomy ever since she got married. The little canary was evidence of how sensitive Mrs. Wright was, who would sing when it was happy. When the women discovered the canary dead, they understood the reason for the bread being outside the breadbox, the desperate uneven stitches in the cloth and the halfway cleaned the table. Mrs. Wright had lost her music, the only thing that held her together (Treadwell, 74).

From all these things that seemed trifling, the dead bird would have solved the query of Mrs. Wright’s murderous act. The women, however, knew that the men would never take them seriously, and also empathized with Mrs. Wright, so they hide the bird.Works CitedGlaspell, Susan. Trifles: A Play in One Act. Los Angeles, CA: Bakers Plays, 2010. Print.Ibsen, Henrik. A Dolls House. Rockville, Md: Serenity Publishers, 2009. Print.Treadwell, Sophie. Machinal. London: Royal National Theatre, 1993. Print.