English Lit Reading assign #1

Write 300 word response to the play. The word count does not include the MLA formatted heading, the title, the quote, or the works cited entry.

Focus on some aspect of the play that stood out to you. Use the information provided in the “Reading Response Explained” link in the Textbooks area to develop your response. DO NOT SUMMARIZE the play. There are questions in the textbook, directly after the play. You can use one of those if you need to.

This response must include one quote from the play, integrated properly into the essay. Each quote must include an in-text citation. A works cited entry must also be included at the end of the response.

Do NOT use any research in this response.

Remember to use MLA format throughout:

• Times New Roman 12 point font
• double space throughout
• indent paragraphs
• proper heading
• creative title
• in-text citations
• works cited entry
• See sample MLA essay for proper format:

Plagiarism or the use of AI will result in a zero.

Born in Davenport, Iowa, Susan Glaspell grew up in a Midwest that was settled only decades before, but was developing rapidly as the post-Civil War economic boom transformed the United States. After graduating from high school, Glaspell worked as a reporter for the Davenport Morning Republican and then for Davenports Weekly Outlook, where she edited the society pages. As a student at Drake University, Glaspell began writing for the college newspaper, and following her graduation became a statehouse reporter for the Des Moines Daily News, where she gained familiarity with the workings of American government. After two years as a journalist, she turned her attention to fiction, and her short stories appeared in magazines such as the Ladies Home Journal and Harpers. For a short time in 1903, she studied English at the University of Chicagos graduate school. Her first novel, The Glory of the Conquered, was published in 1909.Glaspell gave up journalism in 1901 and returned to Davenport, where she met the free-thinking George Cram Cook, a fellow member of the local progressive organization called the Monist Society. Though Cook was married when they met, he left his wife and married Glaspell, then thirty-six, and together they moved to the East Coast in 1913. Over the next ten years, they lived part of each year in New Yorks Greenwich Village and part in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Cook was a writer as well as a theatrical director, and the couple helped to found the Provincetown Players, a landmark organization in the development of American theater. The most famous of its members, Eugene ONeill, authored plays such as Long Days Journey into Night and The Iceman Cometh. Glaspell wrote nine plays for the Provincetown Players from 1916 to 1922, including her best-known one-act play Trifles. The commercial success of the Provincetown Players in some ways limited the companys ability to experiment, and in 1922 Glaspell and her husband left the group.

Glaspell continued to write through the 1930s and 1940s, publishing drama and fiction and remaining committed to writing experimental and overtly social work. Her play Alisons Room, which received the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1930, follows the struggles of Alison Stanhope, a poet modeled upon Emily Dickinson, and considers the difficulties female artists face as a result of their gender. Much of Glaspells work considers womens roles in society and the conflicts faced by American women who pursue individual fulfillment. Trifles examines the ways that expectations of women can confine them and offers a potential remedy for this problem in the communal efforts of women resisting the traditional roles to which men assign them. Glaspells focus on the lives of women and their roles in American society challenged conventions of what could be shown on the American stage, and her stylistic innovations and promotion of new experiments in drama helped to shape American theater. After decades of critical neglect, Glaspells significant contribution to the development of American drama has begun to be recognized.

131

All the W orlds a Stage

MRS. HALE

(

jumping up

)

But, Mrs. Peterslook at it! Its neck! Look at its neck!

Its allother side

to

.

MRS. PETERS

Somebodywrungitsneck.

(

Their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension,

of horror. Steps are heard outside

. MRS. HALE

slips

box under quilt pieces, and sinks into her chair. Enter

SHERIFF

and

COUNTY ATTORNEY. MRS. PETERS

rises

.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY

(

as one turning from serious things to little pleasantries

)

Well ladies, have you decided whether she was going to

quilt it or knot it?

MRS. PETERS

We think she was going toknot it.

COUNTY ATTORNEY

Well, thats interesting, Im sure.

(

seeing the birdcage

)

Has

the

bird

flown?

MRS. HALE

(

putting more quilt pieces over the box

)

We think thecat got it.

COUNTY ATTORNEY

(

preoccupied

)

Is there a cat?

(MRS. HALE

glances in a quick covert way at

MRS.

PETERS.)

MRS. PETERS

Well, not now. Theyre superstitious, you know. They

leave.

132

Writing and Literature: Composition as Inquiry, Learning, Tinking, and Communication

COUNTY ATTORNEY

(

to

SHERIFF PETERS,

continuing an interrupted con

–

versation

)

No sign at all of anyone having come from the outside.

Their own rope. Now lets go up again and go over it

piece by piece.

(

they start upstairs

)

It would have to have been someone who knew just the

(MRS. PETERS

sits down. The two women sit there not

looking at one another, but as if peering into something

and at the same time holding back. When they talk now

it is in the manner of feeling their way over strange

ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as if they

can not help saying it

.)

MRS. HALE

She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty

box.

MRS. PETERS

(

in a whisper

)

When I was a girlmy kittenthere was a boy took

a hatchet, and before my eyesand before I could get

there

(

covers her face an instant

)

If they hadnt held me back I would have

(

catches herself, looks upstairs where steps are heard,

falters weakly

)

hurt him.

MRS. HALE

(

with a slow look around her

)

I wonder how it would seem never to have had any

children around,

(

pause

)

No, Wright wouldnt like the birda thing that sang.

She used to sing. He killed that, too.

MRS. PETERS

(

moving uneasily

)

We dont know who killed the bird.

133

All the W orlds a Stage

MRS. HALE

I knew John Wright.

MRS. PETERS

It was an awful thing was done in this house that night,

Mrs. Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope

around his neck that choked the life out of him.

MRS. HALE

His neck. Choked the life out of him.

(

Her hand goes out and rests on the bird-cage

.)

MRS. PETERS

(

with rising voice

)

We dont know who killed him. We dont

know

.

MRS. HALE

(

her own feeling not interrupted

)

If thered been years and years of nothing, then a bird to

sing to you, it would be awfulstill, after the bird was still.

MRS. PETERS

(

something within her speaking.

)

I know what stillness is. When we homesteaded in

Dakota,

and

my

first

baby

diedafter

he

was

two

years

old, and me with no other then

MRS. HALE

(

moving.

)

How soon do you suppose theyll be through, looking

for the evidence?

MRS. PETERS

I know what stillness is.

(

pulling herself back.

)

The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale.

MRS. HALE

(

not as if answering that.

)

I wish youd seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white

dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir

and sang.

134

Writing and Literature: Composition as Inquiry, Learning, Tinking, and Communication

(

a look around the room.

)

Oh, I

wish

Id come over here once in a while! That was

a crime! That was a crime! Whos going to punish that?

MRS. PETERS

(

looking upstairs.

)

We mustnttake on.

MRS. HALE

I might have known she needed help! I know how things

can befor women. I tell you, its queer, Mrs. Peters.

We live close together and we live far apart. We all go

through the same thingsits all just a different kind of

the same thing,

(

brushes her eyes, noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out

for it.

)

If I was you, I wouldnt tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her

it

aint

. Tell her its all right. Take this in to prove it to her.

Sheshe may never know whether it was broke or not.

MRS. PETERS

(

takes the bottle, looks about for something to wrap it in;

takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other

room, very nervously begins winding this around the

bottle. In a false voice.

)

My, its a good thing the men couldnt hear us. Wouldnt

they just laugh! Getting all stirred up over a little thing

like adead canary. As if that could have anything to do

withwithwouldnt they

laugh

!

(

The men are heard coming down stairs

.)

MRS. HALE

(

under her breath.

)

Maybe they wouldmaybe they wouldnt.

COUNTY ATTORNEY

No, Peters, its all perfectly clear except a reason for

doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women.

If

there

was

some

definite

thing.

Something

to

show

something to make a story abouta thing that would

connect up with this strange way of doing it

135

All the W orlds a Stage

(

The womens eyes meet for an instant. Enter HALE from

outer door

.)

HALE

Well, Ive got the team around. Pretty cold out there.

COUNTY ATTORNEY

Im going to stay here a while by myself,

(

to the

SHERIFF.)

You can send Frank out for me, cant you? I want to go

over

everything.

Im

not

satisfied

that

we

cant

do

better.

SHERIFF

Do you want to see what Mrs. Peters is going to take in?

(

The

LAWYER

goes to the table, picks up the apron,

laughs

.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY

Oh, I guess theyre not very dangerous things the ladies

have picked out.

(

Moves a few things about, disturbing the quilt pieces

which cover the box. Steps back

)

No, Mrs. Peters doesnt need supervising. For that mat

–

ter, a sheriffs wife is married to the law. Ever think of it

that way, Mrs. Peters?

MRS. PETERS

Notjust that way.

SHERIFF

(

chuckling

)

Married to the law.

(

moves toward the other room

)

I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We

ought to take a look at these windows.

COUNTY ATTORNEY

(

scoffingly

)

Oh, windows!

136

Writing and Literature: Composition as Inquiry, Learning, Tinking, and Communication

SHERIFF

Well be right out, Mr. Hale.

(HALE

goes outside. The

SHERIFF

follows the

COUNTY ATTORNEY

into the other room. Then

MRS.

HALE

rises, hands tight together, looking intensely at

MRS. PETERS,

whose eyes make a slow turn, finally

meeting

MRS. HALE

s. A moment

MRS. HALE

holds

her, then her own eyes point the way to where the box is

concealed. Suddenly

MRS. PETERS

throws back quilt

pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing.

It is too big. She opens box, starts to take bird out,

cannot touch it, goes to pieces, stands there helpless.

Sound of a knob turning in the other room

. MRS. HALE

snatches the box and puts it in the pocket of her big coat.

Enter

COUNTY ATTORNEY

and

SHERIFF.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY

(

facetiously

)

Well, Henry, at least we found out that she was not going

to quilt it. She was going towhat is it you call it, ladies?

MRS. HALE

(

her hand against her pocket

)

We call itknot it, Mr. Henderson.

(CURTAIN)

(1916)

Questions for Consideration:

1.

Discuss what sort of backdrop, props, and costumes would be

required to perform this play. How much of this detail is dictated

by the stage directions and how much of it is left for the director

to create?

2.

How are the characters revealed? Which lines of dialogue are

especially

tell-tale

regarding

certain

characters

values

and

personalities?

3.

How does the play develop the audiences impression of Mrs.

Wright, though she never appears in the play?