English Television Actors and Trifles Literary Response
Name: ______________________________ Date: ________________________ Period: ______
“Trifles”
Literary Response and Analysis Questions
Directions:
Read the questions carefully. Respond to each thoroughly, insightfully and correctly in complete sentences. Answers are worth two points each.
1. What attitudes toward women do the Sheriff and the County Attorney express? How do Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters react to these statements?
2. Why does the County Attorney care so much about discovering a motive for the killing?
3. What does Glaspell show us about the position of women in this early twentieth-century community?
4. What do we learn about the married life of the Wrights? by what means is this knowledge revealed to us?
5. What is the setting of this play, and how does it help us to understand Mrs. Wright’s deed?
Name: ______________________________ Date: ________________________ Period: ______
“Trifles”
Literary Response and Analysis Questions
Directions:
Read the questions carefully. Respond to each thoroughly, insightfully and correctly in complete sentences. Answers are worth two points each.
6. What do you infer from the wildly stitched block in Minnie’s quilt? Why does Mrs. Hale rip out the stitches?
7. What is so suggestive in the ruined birdcage and the dead canary wrapped in silk? What do these objects have to do with Minnie Foster Wright? What similarity do you notice between the way the canary dies and John Wright’s own death?
8. What thoughts and memories confirm Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale in their decision to help Minnie beat the murder charge?
9. In what places does Mrs. Peters show that she is trying to be a loyal, law-abiding sheriff’s wife? Provide examples from text. How do she and Mrs. Hale differ in background and temperament?
10. Comment on Mrs. Hale’s closing speech: “We call it-knot it, Mr. Henderson.” Why
“Trifles”
Literary Response and Analysis Questions
Directions:
Read the questions carefully. Respond to each thoroughly, insightfully and correctly in complete sentences. Answers are worth two points each.
1. What attitudes toward women do the Sheriff and the County Attorney express? How do Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters react to these statements?
2. Why does the County Attorney care so much about discovering a motive for the killing?
3. What does Glaspell show us about the position of women in this early twentieth-century community?
4. What do we learn about the married life of the Wrights? by what means is this knowledge revealed to us?
5. What is the setting of this play, and how does it help us to understand Mrs. Wright’s deed?
Name: ______________________________ Date: ________________________ Period: ______
“Trifles”
Literary Response and Analysis Questions
Directions:
Read the questions carefully. Respond to each thoroughly, insightfully and correctly in complete sentences. Answers are worth two points each.
6. What do you infer from the wildly stitched block in Minnie’s quilt? Why does Mrs. Hale rip out the stitches?
7. What is so suggestive in the ruined birdcage and the dead canary wrapped in silk? What do these objects have to do with Minnie Foster Wright? What similarity do you notice between the way the canary dies and John Wright’s own death?
8. What thoughts and memories confirm Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale in their decision to help Minnie beat the murder charge?
9. In what places does Mrs. Peters show that she is trying to be a loyal, law-abiding sheriff’s wife? Provide examples from text. How do she and Mrs. Hale differ in background and temperament?
10. Comment on Mrs. Hale’s closing speech: “We call it-knot it, Mr. Henderson.” Why