Theme Of Foreshadowing In Trifles

In the world that surrounds everyone today, one may ask what dictates the happiness of a woman? Most people will say that often a woman’s happiness is correlated with her husband’s happiness. During the time period of Glaspell’s play Trifles, if the husband weren’t content, than his wife was usually made to be unhappy as well. The feeling of being miserable could drive a woman to search for her happiness in something else; she sometimes could find happiness in things such as pets, for example Minnie’s bird in Trifles. In the play Trifles by Susan Glaspell, the focus of the plot is the wife, Minnie Wright, who is facing a murder charge of her husband, John Wright. This one-act play also follows other characters who are trying to figure out what …show more content…
In the text, most of the foreshadowing happens when Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are walking throughout the Wright household and are searching for all of the items Mrs.Wright asked for. An example of foreshadowing in the text, is when Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are discussing what kind of man Mr Wright was. Mrs Peters makes the statement, “They say he was a good man.” While Mrs. Hale says, “yes - good; he didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man. Just to pass the time of day with him -- (Shivers.).” (Glaspell 608). The way that Mrs. Hale talks about Mr. Wright is showing how he would’ve been an unpleasant man to live with when he was alive. Secondly, is when Mrs. Peters finds the broken bird-cage hidden in the cupboard while searching through Minnie’s things. Using everything she knew about John Wright, Mrs. Hale came to the conclusion that Minnie’s late husband had broken the bird-cage, and killed the bird, when she stated, “No Wright wouldn’t like the bird - a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed the bird. I knew John Wright.” (Glaspell 609). These events help the reader to understand why Minnie Wright had a reason to kill John, the same way John had killed her canary. Since Minnie was never allowed to do what she loved, because Mr. Wright killed everything that she …show more content…
Throughout Trifles, Glaspell uses these terms to show the reader that women of that time were always treated like a second class citizen only because of their gender. The author uses this play to get the attention of her readers to show the amount of rampant gender inequality that she was raised around; and, to help the readers understand that even in plays, there will always be a issue concerning