The Triffles

"The Trifle" by Susan Glaspell is a murder mystery that involves gender relationships, power between the sexes, and the nature of truth. The setting for "The Trifle" is a bleak, untidy kitchen in an abandoned rural farmhouse, quickly establishes the claustrophobic mood of the play. While a cold winter wind blows outside, the characters file in one at a time to investigate a violent murder: the farm's owner, John Wright, was apparently strangled to death while he slept, and his wife, Minnie, has been taken into custody as a suspect in the crime. The sheriff, Henry Peters, is the first to enter the farmhouse, followed by George Henderson, the attorney prosecuting the case. Lewis Hale, a neighbor, is next to...

In this play, a farmer and his wife are never actually present but yet the story focuses on the prosecutor, George Henderson. George was the man who was been called in to investigate the murder. Henry Peters, the local sheriff; Lewis Hale, a neighboring farmer who discovered Wright's body; and Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, wives to the two local men.

While the men trek around the farmhouse searching for clues, the women discover bits of evidence. Their evidence was in the ''trifles'' of the farmer's wife. Things they found were her baking, cleaning and sewing supplies. Because the men virtually ignore the women's world, they remain blind to the truth before their eyes.

Perhaps the single most important theme in "The Trifle" is the difference between men and women. The two sexes are distinguished by the roles they play in society, their physicality, their methods of communication and--vital to the plot of the play-- their powers of observation.

In simple terms, "The Trifle" suggests that men tend to be aggressive, brash, rough, analytical and self centered; in contrast, women are more circumspect, deliberative, intuitive, and sensitive to the