week 11

This blog will be over the play "Trifles" by Glaspell. In the play, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale both start off very quiet, only speaking when spoken to by the men in the play. As the play progresses and Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale get more time alone, I begin to notice that Mrs. Peters is more concerned with legalities than Mrs. Hale. Mrs. Peters is often keeping herself from saying or doing things she wants to do by thinking about those legalities. She even steps in and corrects Mrs. Hale a time or two for letting her emotions get the best of her. Mrs. Hale seems to me to be more caring for the situation that Mrs. Wright is in. She is more inquisitive about what is going on and what took place in the Wright's home. Mrs. Hale is taking in her surroundings, and with the feelings of loneliness and sadness that she is getting from the house, she starts to blame herself for never coming over to spend time with Mrs. Wright or to help her with things on the farm. Mrs. Hale seems to take it personally when she hears the men joking about how messy the house was. She finds it rude that they would carry on about Mrs. Wright in such a way when she knows how much work it can be to keep up a house and a farm. She seems to understand that the work can be even more daunting when you are sad, or feel lonely, without the joys of children around. I think Glaspell made the two women so different so that anyone who read or watched the play would see both points of view. Whether to intervene or just to let things play out as they might, with Mrs. Hale being the one who would intervene and without Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Peters might just let things go. Their differences contribute to the conflict of the play because you can see both points of view. Do you stick to legalities even if inside you feel like it is right for you to intervene? Or do you push the rules aside and do what you think is the right thing? This is a question that can be applied to so many different situations, not just the one that is posed in the play. The resolution of the play is that there must be a balance. There is not always black and white, right and wrong. Sometimes, you need a little bit of both, a grey area. Which is why, in the end, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale meet somewhere in the middle and hide the bird that they found in the box from the men.