The Missing Pyramid in Trifles - Essay Example

The Missing Pyramid in Trifles It is generally recognized by most avid readers that most stories follow a basic structural framework that has been identified and mapped out by Gustav Freytag. According to Freytag, successful stories are built upon the framework of a pyramid in which the action starts on one side with the exposition, builds through rising action and reaches the summit of the pyramid with the climax. This then tapers back down the other side of the pyramid with falling action and resolution. Although there has been a great deal of experimentation with this basic structure, including altering the starting and stopping points to some degree or another to either sharpen or soften the impact of the climax, it is true that most of our most popular stories follow this basic concept. However, Susan Glaspell, author of Trifles, has been accused of completely abandoning this basic structural framework within the play, creating instead a meandering, pointless and climax-less exposition that communicates its power through the very powerlessness of its main characters and the absence of the primary protagonist. A closer understanding of the basic plotline of the story reveals that Glaspell did not abandon this common structure, but instead placed it in an unusual context, purposely de-emphasizing the climax to illustrate the necessary actions of women with little to no power of their own. The play begins with the entrance of two women and three men into a gloomy farm kitchen that turns out to be the former home of John and Mrs. Wright. This is typically where exposition would start as the author begins to set up the story and this is exactly what Glaspell does. She includes some foreshadowing regarding the nature of the relationship between the couple as Mr. Hale continues to drop hints that John was cruelly dominating toward his wife. Telling the story of how he found the couple upon his arrival the morning of John’s death, Mr. Hale indicates that he had hoped to convince John to get a telephone and felt perhaps speaking about it in front of Mrs. Wright might have some positive effect as she was sure to want one as well. “I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it before his wife, though I said to Harry that I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John.” This indication of a master/servant relationship is carried throughout this opening segment of the play and deliberately throws emphasis upon the men’s ideas regarding John’s death while allowing the two women to slip almost unseen into the background. With the exit of the men to the upstairs bedroom where John Wright had been murdered, the women are left in the kitchen while the audience’s attention remains focused upon the activities of the men no longer a part of the scene. However, the rising action shifts from being the burden of the men to resting on the seemingly meaningless activities of the women. As Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters begin sorting through the kitchen, putting things back in order, they begin discussing their feelings and thoughts about the lady of the house and how things had changed in her life from when she was young. As they select some clean clothes to take to her, they notice the shabby nature of the fabric and style and comment upon Mrs. Wright’s feeling uncomfortable participating in the activities of the town perhaps because she felt she wouldn’t be able to do her part. They also talk about how hard it is to maintain a farmhouse all alone and the various odd things they find in the kitchen, such as the half-cleaned table, the load of bread sitting just outside the breadbox and the strange sewing on her final quilt block. The rising action takes on greater weight with the discovery of the broken bird cage and further discussion between the two women of what Minnie Foster had been like before she became Mrs. Wright as well as what kind of man Mr. Wright was and the sort of house he maintained. Mrs. Hale tells Mrs. Peters that she stayed away because the house was gloomy and lonesome while the man who owned it, despite having a reputation for being a good man, “was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him. (Shivers). Like a raw wind that gets to the bone.” The drastic contrast between the sweet, outgoing and songbird quality of Minnie Foster as compared to the withdrawn, silent and unsociable woman within her gloomy, silent house creates real tension on the part of the audience as they begin to realize that this woman, having been constrained so long within a shell not of her own making, was ready to break at the slightest provocation as evidenced by the erratic nature of her housekeeping upon that final day. Throughout this rising climax, the men continue coming into the room and exiting again, continuing to direct the audience’s attention to their actions rather than the discoveries of the women. It is for this reason that the audience perhaps does not recognize the climax of the story, when the women discover the bird with the broken neck wrapped up in a silk box inside Mrs. Wright’s sewing basket. This scene is designated as the climax because it is with this discovery that all the disjointed pieces suddenly snap together into a clear and coherent whole, both within the minds of the women characters and in the minds of the audience. The fact that this is the climax of the story is only given momentary recognition, however, within the actions rather than the words of the women in the kitchen. Stage directions indicate that the women share “a look of growing comprehension of horror” and then the men enter the room again and the falling action begins as the women determine what to do about their discovery. As the men again pass through the kitchen on their way to inspect another part of the house, the women are forced to make an instant decision not to discuss their finding of the dead bird right away. The provide the men with the information requested of them, meekly concurring with the men’s assumptions despite their knowledge to the contrary, and wait until the men are gone before they begin discussing their find. As they discuss it, they work their way through the moral implications of hiding evidence regarding a murder. While Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, uncertainly offers the fact that the “law must punish crime,” Mrs. Hale asserts that keeping a vibrant, beautiful young woman in solitary confinement for years within a silent farmhouse was itself a crime. The connection between the broken neck of the bird and the throttled death of Mr. Wright is not lost on these women as they consider Mrs. Wright’s actions to have been justified. Having made their decision to keep the evidence of the bird hidden away from the men, the play moves into its resolution. After thoroughly searching through the house and grounds, the men come to the conclusion that there is no solid evidence to be found to either indicate a break-in or to convict Mrs. Wright for the murder. The women, realizing they have the very piece of evidence the men need, conspire successfully to keep the bird hidden from them and the play comes to a close. Because of the way in which the play is started, giving the exposition of the story to the men, the audience continues to look to the men for the main elements of the story. However, Glaspell hides these elements by allowing them to start with the men and then passes them over to the women as they struggle to come to grips with the evidence sitting just in front of them. The continued reappearance of the men reveals an unconscious tendency to look to the men for important details while the underlying structure of the story, laying as it does with the women, often becomes overlooked or undervalued. The climax itself is emblematic of this motion as it occurs with the women, becomes interrupted by the men and leads immediately into resolution. While some may argue that Glaspell’s play does not follow the traditional structure of a story, this analysis has demonstrated that these elements are indeed present, just hidden from the viewer through their own sense of blindness. Read More