Lady Justice

By Daniel Winchester Faculty Mentor: Dr. Nicholas E. Miller, Department of English

Article Abstract

What plays a more active part in women’s power during 1916: silence or action? This article seeks to examine the connection between silence, action, and power in Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles. The story follows two women who wander the home of a woman charged with murder, while the two women’s husbands (the local sheriff and neighbor) investigate the crime scene upstairs for clues on the murder. The two women eventually discover the dead body of a bird, but decide to hide this potential evidence from their husbands. Through the seemingly invincible act of hiding evidence away from the men in power, the women are able to use their own form of power. This article argues that the women utilize both silence and action to unite and achieve justice for the wronged suspect. This union creates a new social justice, a lady justice figure.

Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles presents an argument between power through silence and power through action. The play seemingly favors one side of that argument, following two women and their gained power through silence. Their actions mirror reality, but provide justice to a forgotten minority. By examining Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale separately, their silence and action are seen as contrary things—one unable to exist without the other. But, by comparing the two women’s acts, their defiance toward the patriarchy creates a shared solidarity, blending the women’s experiences and opinions together to become the play’s source of justice and modernization. According to Glory Gatwiri, “silence is much more commonly associated with women’s disempowerment in reference mainly to their failure to speak out and/or act against gendered oppressive situations . . . Indeed, silence can be and is frequently used by women as a socially embedded tactic to nonconfrontationally assert oneself and reclaim lost power” (13). As Carmen Luke notes,

women’s silences in public contexts have been read by feminists as symptomatic of their subjugated social status. Voice, by contrast, has always been equated with a politically positive and empowering move: a public utterance of assertion of one’s position on an issue, or the “naming” of one’s identity and location on the demographic grid of socially ascribed “differences.” (213)

The women in Trifles appear to mimic that silence, playing into their male given silent roles as housewives. Minnie Wright is the perfect example of silence from subjugation. She lives with her husband John, “having no children” (Glaspell 518) and remains at home to do whatever she can around the house. She eventually buys a bird that fills the home with music, but that bird is killed, presumably, by Minnie’s husband. The bird, representing the embodiment of women and their voice, is

strangled into submission by a man. John Wright was a man who enjoyed silence and coming home to “a quiet house” (Glaspell 518). To Minnie, the bird becomes a symbol of womanhood. Its song becomes a metaphor for women who dare speak out against the patriarchy and its oppressive, forced silence on women. John’s murder of the bird then becomes a symbol of man killing woman, not just physically breaking the neck so that a woman cannot talk but taking away her voice to improve her life. Minnie and the bird are forced to live in “a lonesome place” in a “quiet house” (Glaspell 518), and she is assumedly driven to murder in order to escape. A negative form of silence has now taken root. But, as Luke mentions, “literature has largely overlooked […] the use of silence as a politics of resistance, in Foucauldian terms, the use of silence can be read as a refusal to ‘confess’ and to ‘expose’ the self” (Luke 213). Throughout Trifles, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, wives of the investigators, wander around Minnie’s home, making comments on it and reflecting on Minnie’s past. Meanwhile, the men upstairs investigate the murder of Minnie’s husband, John. As the two sexes split up (the women downstairs and the men upstairs), so do their modes of investigation. Suzy Clarkson Holstein notes that the women’s method from the beginning “leads not only to the discovery that eludes the men, but also to their ultimate moral choice, a choice which radically separates them from the men” (282). The men go “methodically from room to room, following the preset plan of search” (283). They enter the house and begin to explore the scene of the crime, but not the event itself. When Hale is going over the crime, he notes that “if [he] went to the house and talked about [getting a party telephone] before his wife … that [he] didn’t know as what his wife wanted,” only for the County Attorney to cut him off, telling Hale that they will “talk about that later” and to tell “just what happened when you go to the house” (Glaspell 514). The County Attorney appears to have no consideration for the background of the events that led up to the murder, even though the murdered man seemingly wanted to be cut off from society,

saying that “folks talked too much anyway” (Glaspell 514). That isolation would then be placed upon his wife, potentially driving her crazy, but the attorney misses out on any of these possible connections. Mrs. Hale later begins to mention that the house could not be “any cheerfuller for John Wright’s being in it” (Glaspell 515), this being the first time it is alluded to that John may abuse his wife. However, Mrs. Hale is cut off by the County Attorney, who tells her that they’ll “talk more of that … later” and that he wants to get the “lay of things upstairs now” (Glaspell 515). The men refuse to understand the background of the crime or the motive, only looking for evidence. Holstein finds that “Mr. Peters, and Mr. Hale never attempt to identify with John Wright or even consider him a distinct individual with specific behaviors . . . He is the victim of a crime, [Minnie] the criminal” (Holstein 286). By contrast, the women not only try to understand the motive, but they put themselves in Minnie’s place. Linda BenZvi notes that Minnie never physically appears, but instead, the audience is swayed “by her condition, a condition shared by other women who can be imagined in the empty subject position.” By staging the play in the kitchen, “Glaspell offers the audience a composite picture of the life of Minnie,” bringing the focus toward “motives for murder, what goes on in the home, and why women kill” (154). Ben-Zvi also notes that everyone conducting the formal investigation “were men and as such they were in control of the court and the direction of the testimony” (154). However, Holstein notes that the women “arrive at a home” and unknowingly conduct their own investigation (Holstein 283). Mrs. Hale even defends Minnie when the men criticize her for not keeping the house clean, stating that “Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men’s hands aren’t always clean as they might be” (Glaspell 515). The Attorney is quick to note that Mrs. Hale is “loyal to [her] sex” (515). However, that loyalty has not yet turned the women against the men, or more specifically, the law. Of the two women, Mrs. Hale is much more willing to

understand Minnie at first. The other is not. This is seen when Mrs. Peters notes that “the law is the law” (516), and she is “Married to the law” (519). Holstein notes that the turning point for the women comes when “they begin, almost instinctively, to put themselves into Minnie Wright’s place” (283). The women do not simply sympathize with Minnie, they identify with her. Mrs. Hale notes to Mrs. Peters that women “all go through the same things—it’s all just a different kind of the same thing” (Glaspell 519). Mrs. Hale begins their identification with Minnie as scarred women when she reflects on how Minnie used to be, “real sweet and pretty,” only for her to be abused by someone society would label a “good man” because he “didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most … and paid his debts” (518). Although starting as the defender of the law, Mrs. Peters soon follows Mrs. Hale’s lead toward empathy when they find the dead bird. During that moment, she remembers a time when a boy killed her kitten, noting that if “they hadn’t held me back [she] would have hurt him” (519). Meanwhile, Mrs. Peters notes how empty the house is, leading Mrs. Hale to comment that “[n]ot having children makes less work—but it makes a quiet house” (518). That quietness, or loneliness, is what leads the women, specifically Mrs. Hale, to not just pity Minnie, but to take responsibility for not coming to visit her. Mrs. Hale states that she wishes she had “come over [there] once in a while” and that her playing a part in Minnie’s loneliness contributed to driving Minnie over the edge (519). Rob Hardy finds that “Glaspell returns repeatedly in her writing to the theme of loneliness and the possibility of overcoming loneliness” (202). With an empty house, Glaspell evokes that theme, using it as one form of motivation behind Minnie’s crime. But the text also presents a “what-if” scenario from Mrs. Hale and her regret for not visiting Minnie. She may not be able to go back and visit Minnie. The possibility was there, but it has passed. The text takes that past possibility and shows the fallout of ignoring it, pointing toward murder as a

result. From that past regret, Mrs. Hale recollects the past, and happy memories of Minnie to avoid the sad truth of things. Holstein notes that “this evocation of memories compels the women to see Minnie Wright not as an abstract murderer but as a fully developed, complex victim who at last retaliated against the source of her pain” (286). It is these moments of recollection and empathy that allow the women to understand what happened between Minnie and John. Özlem Gümüşçubuk notes that “the play explicitly shows that the things men perceive as ‘unimportant’ or ‘unnecessary’ or trifles are actually crucial, important and necessary, especially since they are facts in a murder case” (401). The women’s final push toward rebellion, which was the act of hiding newly discovered evidence from their husbands, comes when Mrs. Peters notes that the “law has got to punish crimes” (Glaspell 519). This leads Mrs. Hale to bring up John’s abuse of Minnie, asking: “Who’s going to punish that?” (519). Mrs. Peters has now joined Mrs. Hale in shared solidarity, seeing Mrs. Hale’s point that justice has not yet been served. As Holstein notes, “it is the women’s alternative path, the way they discover the evidence, that leads them to withhold it because they recognize that they are bound up in the texture of evidence” (287). Bridging that invisible act, Janet Wright argues that the question of “visibility and invisibility is … vital” (237). Mrs. Peters, in asking who is to punish Minnie’s abuse, points out the visible, the law. But her question also brings awareness to the invisible, justice. With this new sense of justice, the two women have joined together. These women of different opinions now share common ground, and are blended together to form their own justice for Minnie. Hiding the dead bird’s body from the men—even though fully aware that the men are looking for “something to show anger, or—sudden feeling” is their first act of claimed justice (Glaspell 516). Phyllis Mael notes that this is an act that would “counter patriarchal law” (Mael 281). In this moment, Holstein notes, their silence is “no longer a silence of powerlessness” but

a “mark of their solidarity, a refusal to endanger a sister” (290). Together, they empower one another “to take actions . . . which they could not take as individuals,” leading them to “share their experiences” and “act out of a new respect for the value of their lives as women . . . equal to, the world of men” (Mael 284). Using their social standing as women “[m]arried to the law” (Glaspell 519) worrying “over trifles” (515), the women twist their forced silence from the men into a weapon used to free one of their own. However, like any power, they face drawbacks. While hiding the evidence might free Minnie from prison, this act also hides John’s crime. As Hardy claims, by “suppressing the evidence … of a crime” the women also suppress the “silent and narrow life a woman has been forced to live” (209). John’s abuse was revealed through the bird and Mrs. Peters’ and Mrs. Hale’s experiences with similar problems. But by hiding that bird, they hide away Minnie’s motivation and justification. The women take a risk in hiding evidence to free Minnie from prison, but they also face a drawback of doing this—that being John’s crime being hidden along with Minnie’s. The two women weigh their options and deem Minnie’s physical freedom (jail) greater than her mental prison (a secret history of abuse from her husband). When they decide to hide the dead bird away, they decide to hide the evidence condemning Minnie to jail, evidence that could be used to free Minnie from a past of abuse. Up to this point, the two women have noted a stillness within their lives. Specifically, Mrs. Peters notes that she knows “what stillness is,” referring to a time when her “first baby died” (Glaspell 519). That stillness is not unlike Minnie and her fruit that froze (515). Mrs. Hale notes that “when [Minnie] was Minnie Foster” she was much livelier (516). The fruit freezes and the jars break. This is much like what happened with Minnie when she froze in isolation and stillness, that old Minnie seemingly dying. The three women share that experience with stillness, a stillness not unlike death. However, Hardy notes that these women are seemingly “brought back to life through

their response to the suffering of others” (210). He notes that “Silence in Glaspell can mean the failure or the suppression of speech, but it can also look forward to something still waiting to be expressed” (211). Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are brought back to life through their identification with Minnie, not unlike Minnie’s identification with her bird. As Mrs. Hale states, Minnie was “kind of like a bird herself” (Glaspell 518). Minnie came back to life once she got her bird but returned to her comatose state once it was killed—thus leading her to kill. Connecting Hardy’s two statements, perhaps Minnie still has more to say. The “something still waiting to be expressed” (Hardy 211) will become expressed once the three women are physically united. Looking at the shared solidarity between Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, and looking at the acts of defiance (killing and hiding) among the three women, the text challenges gender roles and asks: what kind of justice could the three women accomplish for other oppressed women when reunited? That question plays into masculine fear of women gaining a voice and is echoed in the men’s attempt to lock Minnie away for murder. Minnie’s murder begins the whole conflict, but it also ends her own personal battle with her husband, her abuser. Like a caged bird, she only saw one way out, one form of power left to wield: murder. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale take that action and bury it, choosing to remain silent on the crime but bold in their justice. Minnie took action, and the two remaining women seemingly take silence. But, looking back at the invisible versus the visible, the women take their own form of physical action. Their action is not brought into words; the two women remain silent and never make note of their actions. Their action is instead hidden in the stage directions of the play. As the Sheriff and County Attorney return to the room upon completing inspection of the house, the two women’s “eyes make a slow turn, finally meeting . . . Mrs. Peters throws back quilt pieces and tries to put the box into the bag . . . Mrs. Hale snatches the box and puts it in the pocket of her big coat” (Glaspell 519). Such an action, seemingly invisible to the men, holds so

much power, specifically from Mrs. Peters. The woman married to the law divorces it in one quick moment. The woman who was slow to understand Minnie makes the first move to hide away incriminating evidence. It is almost like the actions of a fight within a divorce, realizing that marriage was holding back something within her. That divorce leaves her opposite of the law, which, within the eyes of Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, is justice. The women are now outside the law and have become an embodiment of justice for Minnie. Minnie remained silent about her abuse and broke apart at the seams. Her silence drove her to commit murder. Mrs. Hale acknowledges her silence in helping Minnie, a rift between the two that would lead to Minnie breaking. But her description and defense of Minnie led Mrs. Peters to have a change of heart. This change of heart would unite the women in shared sisterhood that hides away all evidence. An act of hiding evidence, of remaining silent about its very existence, would lead to a divorce from the law and toward the creation of self-made justice. Justice would be the first swing against the male patriarchy that refused to listen to any backstory and ignore Minnie’s abuse from John. A swing would go on to unite the women in a sisterhood against the patriarchy that deemed them and their opinions as nothing more than trifles, ushering in space for an era of modernization and social justice. Through shared action, the women commit the crime. Through shared silence, the women get away with the crime. One cannot exist without the other. A mix of silence and action creates a shared power and creates a Lady Justice.

Works Cited

Ben-Zvi, Linda. “‘Murder, She Wrote’: The Genesis of Susan Glaspell’s ‘Trifles.’” Theatre Journal, vol. 44, no. 2, 1992, pp. 141–62. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/ stable/3208736.

Gatwiri, Glory Joy, and Karanja Anne Mumbi. “Silence as Power: Women Bargaining with Patriarchy in Kenya.” Social Alternatives, vol. 35, no. 1, 2016: 13-18.

Hardy, Rob. “‘We Live Close Together and We Live Far Apart’: A Look2 Essay on Susan Glaspell.” Ploughshares, vol. 42, no. 4, 2016, pp. 199–211. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44738938.

Holstein, Suzy Clarkson. “Silent Justice in a Different Key: Glaspell’s ‘Trifles.’” MidwestQuarterly, vol. 44, no. 3, Spring 2003, pp. 282-90. EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost. com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9548239&si te=eds-live&sope=site.

Luke, Carmen. “Women in the Academy: The Politics of Speech and Silence.” British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol. 15, no. 2, 1994, pp. 211–30. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1393227.

Mael, Phyllis. “Trifles: The Path to Sisterhood.” Literature/ Film Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 4, 1989, pp. 281-84. ProQuest, https://login.ezproxy. library.valdosta.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest. com/docview/226980957?accountid=14800.

Özlem Karagöz Gümüşçubuk. “Domestic Space: A Terrain of Empowerment and Entrapment in Susan Glaspell’s ‘Trifles.’” Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Sosyal BilimlerEnstitüsü Dergisi, no. 2, 2019. EBSCOhost, doi:10.16953/deusosbil.466714.

Wright, Janet Stobbs. “Law, Justice, and Female Revenge in ‘Kerfol’, by Edith Wharton, and ‘Trifles’ and ‘A Jury of Her Peers’, by Susan Glaspell.”Atlantis, vol. 24, no. 1, 2002, pp. 225–43. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/ stable/41055055.