The one-act play ‘Trifles’, by Susan Glaspell has quite the compelling drama plot. In the beginning, the character Lewis Hale goes over to visit the neighboring Wright’s farmhouse, looking for John Wright. At the house, he learns from Mrs. Wright, in a much understated and subtle fashion, that John Wright is dead. Mrs. Wright impassively explains that someone had strangled him with a rope while he was sleeping in bed, where she was also sleeping. Then Mr. Hale contacts the sheriff and county attorney, whom subsequently put Mrs. Wright in custody for her bizarre and suspicious behavior. When the police begin to do their investigation, it is then when the plot turns to more complexity. The police allow the women – Mrs. Hale, a neighbor and acquaintance Because of the societal gender roles of that time, men did not respect nor care to have a woman’s opinion. This can be seen in beginning of ‘Trifles’ when the women are silent; not because they have nothing to say, but because their input would have no value among the men. In contrast, in the climax of the story, when the women found the dead bird, they became purposely silent towards giving information about to the men. Although the men could not perceive the motive of the silence, Holstein concurs: “we as an audience hear a completely new tone in the quiet.” “Their final refusal to speak rings with the power of intention and choice.” (Holstein) Moreover, what Holstein forgot to mention, is the power of silence in relation to the theme can be seen on a more literal note, with the killing of the bird. The Wright’s house was a childless and quiet one. When Mrs. Wright got a pet canary it ended the silence and brought happiness to her. But when Mr. Wright killed the bird, the house was once again silent which subsequently returned misery to her. Mrs. Hale had said that Mrs. Wright was “like a bird herself–real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and–fluttery.” (“Trifles”, 105) When the bird was silenced, it was like she herself became silenced as well, which thus relates to her silencing and killing Mr. Wright. It can be seen that silence played an important role in “Trifles” theme and
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