琐事赏析 Literary Analysis on Trifles
2011-08-23 01:18阅读：
琐事赏析 英文版
Trifles, written by
Susan Glaspell in
1916, is considered as an
outstanding solo
one-act drama
in the history of
Literature.
Back to the early
20th century, it
was a callous patriarchal
society and as the
title of this drama,
Trifles, suggests,
the concerns of women are
often considered to be mere
trifles, unimportant issues that
bear little or no importance
to the true work of
society,
which,
of
course,
is
being
carried
out
by
men
.
In this drama Susan
Glaspell not only
reflect the relative value of
men’s and women’s perspectives
but also criticizes
this value in a
subtle
but ironical
way. In order to give
an literary analysis on
Trifles, this essay
will be divided into two
parts: Plot Analysis and
Theme Analysis. Theme
Analysis: Susan Glaspell
wrote this play from a
real news report which revealed
a common phenomenon that women
were not as equal as men
and nobody cared about women’s
minds or even their lives.
However, it was just the
trifles disdained by the men
in this drama that gave
the fatal evidence for this
murder. The attorney and
sheriff poke fun at
their wives and
their 'trifles.' When the
men think
there is nothing important
in the room by
saying “Nothing here but
kitchen things” and
head upstairs to look
for scene
evidences for
the murder, their wives
examine the
so-called not important
kitchen stuff
where they
find clues pointing
to Mrs. Wright's guilt. In
other areas of the house,
the women discover more
clues that the
men overlooked as
mere 'trifles'. The
men in this
play betray a
sense of self-importance,
and they present
themselves as tough, serious-minded
detectives
while in
truth, they
are not nearly
as observant as
their female
wives. Their pompous
attitude causes the
women to feel defensive and
form ranks. Not only do
Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters
bonds, but
also they chose
to withhold evidence
as an act of compassion
for Mrs. Wright. Stealing the
box with the dead bird
is an act of
loyalty to their gender and
also an act
of defiance against a callous
patriarchal society. Trifles
are actually not trifles at
all. What an irony!
Plot Analysis:
'Trifles' is a
play with an unified plot.
It follows the Aristotelian
“Unities”with the evidence that
the entire drama's plot begins
and ends in a span of
one day and
in the single setting
of kitchen room
and all the plot
centers on John Wright's murder.
Farmer John Wright
has been
murdered with a
rope around his neck
while he
is asleep in
the midnight. And
the suspect might
be his wife.
It seemed
obvious to the male
characters that Mrs.
Wright killed her husband,
and she has
been taken into custody
as the prime suspect.
The attorney and
sheriff decide to find
evidence to point to
Mrs. Wright's guilt, so
they went to the
Wright house together with
their wives. This is the
rising action for the whole
plot. In dealing with
figuring out the murder
evidence, the men and
women react differently.
The drama
built the plot
and characters together in a
few different ways.
The men are very
objective and task-oriented,
they wanted
to get to the point
and do their search of
the crime scene
upstairs, and consider
any smaller points later. Some
of what was
said but put off to be
considered later actually
implied some
foreshadowing of the real issue
surrounding Wright's death. Unlike
the men who
were looking for
forensic evidence to solve the
crime, the women in
Trifles
observed clues
that reveal the bleakness of
Mrs. Wright’s emotional
life, like ruined
fruit preserves, an
unfinished quilt, an
empty bird cage and
so many other trifles.
While the men
were going about
business and being objective,
the women were
looking over what Mrs. Wright
left behind and subjectively
trying to understand what
happened. When
gathering up the quilting
material, they discovered
a fancy little box.
Inside, wrapped in silk
was a dead
canary with its
neck been wrung. The
women realized the implication
that Mrs.
Wright’s husband did
not like the canary’s beautiful
song (a symbol of his
wife’s desire for freedom and
happiness). So Mr.
Wright busted the cage door
and strangled the bird.
As a sympathy for Mrs.
Wright and defiance for their
husbands’ disappreciation, the two
women decided to withhold the
evidence. They don
not tell the men
about their discovery. Instead,
Mrs. Hale put the box
with the deceased bird into
her coat pocket resolving not
to tell the men about
this little “trifle” they have
disco
