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trifles bird symbolism
Trifles Thesis Statement: The Symbol of the Bird

"Trifles" is a play which was written by Susan Glaspell in 1916. The play takes place in the empty farmhouse of Mr. and Mrs. Wright. The county attorney George Henderson, the sheriff Henry Peters and his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Hale, neighbors of Mr. and Mrs. Wright all go to the farmhouse to investigate the crime scene. Throughout the book Susan Glaspell uses a lot of symbolism. One example was the a dead bird that the women find. Hoping to find a motive for the crime the men go upstairs to the bedroom where Mr. Wright was murdered. While the women stay downstairs and look around the kitchen. The women come across a bird which symbolizes Mrs. Wright. The bird becomes the motive for Mrs. Wright to kill Mr. Wright.

When the women are looking around downstairs they come across a bird cage in the cupboard. Mrs Hale observes the door is broken off and someone must have been "rough with it," suggesting the motive for the crime. When Mrs. Hale looks inside Mrs. Wrights sewing box hoping to find scissors she finds a box and inside is the dead bird wrapped in silk. The birds neck looked as if it had been strangled. The women recall that when Minne Foster was younger she was lively, wore pretty clothes and sung in the choir, they said "I heard she used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir." The bird represented Minnie before she was married to Mr. Wright. Mrs. Hale says, "She-come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself-real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and-fluttery. How- she- did- change." Minne and the bird were both caged, the bird was in stuck in an actual cage and Minne was stuck in the house all the time. Mr. Wright changed Mrs. Wright, he took all those good things away, he was controlling he didn’t allow her to see her friends or leave the house, he even stopped her from singing. The bird was her motive

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