Prose fiction analysis

Glaspell's Trifles: what the kitchen means

Unit 3
6 points
About 40 minutes

You read a passage of fiction (it may be drama) and write an essay analyzing how the author uses literary elements and techniques to portray something complex, often a character's attitude or a relationship. You need a defensible thesis, specific evidence from the passage, and commentary explaining it. On the exam: Free-response question 2 of 3 in Section II (3 essays in 2 hours, 55% of the exam score); about 40 minutes suggested; 6 points: thesis 1, evidence and commentary 4, sophistication 1.

The question and its sources

Suggested time: 40 minutes, including reading and planning. Read the passage, plan, then write your essay in the box. The paragraphs are numbered so you can point to them, for example (paragraph 2). This passage is drama: each speech or stage direction (in parentheses) is numbered as a paragraph. Words you may not know: preserves (fruit preserved in jars), roller towel (a towel on a roller fixed to the wall), the LAWYER (the county attorney, Mr Henderson).

Source

SHERIFF: Nothing here but kitchen things.

(The COUNTY ATTORNEY, after again looking around the kitchen, opens the door of a cupboard closet. He gets up on a chair and looks on a shelf. Pulls his hand away, sticky.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Here's a nice mess.

(The women draw nearer.)

MRS PETERS: (to the other woman) Oh, her fruit; it did freeze, (to the LAWYER) She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire'd go out and her jars would break.

SHERIFF: Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin' about her preserves.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: I guess before we're through she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about.

HALE: Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.

(The two women move a little closer together.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (with the gallantry of a young politician) And yet, for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies? (the women do not unbend. He goes to the sink, takes a dipperful of water from the pail and pouring it into a basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them on the roller-towel, turns it for a cleaner place) Dirty towels! (kicks his foot against the pans under the sink) Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?

MRS HALE: (stiffly) There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: To be sure. And yet (with a little bow to her) I know there are some Dickson county farmhouses which do not have such roller towels. (He gives it a pull to expose its length again.)

MRS HALE: Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always as clean as they might be.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too.

MRS HALE: (shaking her head) I've not seen much of her of late years. I've not been in this house—it's more than a year.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: And why was that? You didn't like her?

MRS HALE: I liked her all well enough. Farmers' wives have their hands full, Mr Henderson. And then—

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes—?

MRS HALE: (looking about) It never seemed a very cheerful place.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: No—it's not cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the homemaking instinct.

MRS HALE: Well, I don't know as Wright had, either.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: You mean that they didn't get on very well?

MRS HALE: No, I don't mean anything. But I don't think a place'd be any cheerfuller for John Wright's being in it.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'd like to talk more of that a little later. I want to get the lay of things upstairs now. (He goes to the left, where three steps lead to a stair door.)

SHERIFF: I suppose anything Mrs Peters does'll be all right. She was to take in some clothes for her, you know, and a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes, but I would like to see what you take, Mrs Peters, and keep an eye out for anything that might be of use to us.

MRS PETERS: Yes, Mr Henderson.

(The women listen to the men's steps on the stairs, then look about the kitchen.)

MRS HALE: I'd hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticising.

(She arranges the pans under sink which the LAWYER had shoved out of place.)

MRS PETERS: Of course it's no more than their duty.

MRS HALE: Duty's all right, but I guess that deputy sheriff that came out to make the fire might have got a little of this on. (gives the roller towel a pull) Wish I'd thought of that sooner. Seems mean to talk about her for not having things slicked up when she had to come away in such a hurry.

MRS PETERS: (who has gone to a small table in the left rear corner of the room, and lifted one end of a towel that covers a pan) She had bread set. (Stands still.)

MRS HALE: (eyes fixed on a loaf of bread beside the bread-box, which is on a low shelf at the other side of the room. Moves slowly toward it) She was going to put this in there, (picks up loaf, then abruptly drops it. In a manner of returning to familiar things) It's a shame about her fruit. I wonder if it's all gone. (gets up on the chair and looks) I think there's some here that's all right, Mrs Peters. Yes—here; (holding it toward the window) this is cherries, too. (looking again) I declare I believe that's the only one. (gets down, bottle in her hand. Goes to the sink and wipes it off on the outside) She'll feel awful bad after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the afternoon I put up my cherries last summer.

(She puts the bottle on the big kitchen table, center of the room. With a sigh, is about to sit down in the rocking-chair. Before she is seated realizes what chair it is; with a slow look at it, steps back. The chair which she has touched rocks back and forth.)

Source: Susan Glaspell, Trifles (first performed 1916); text from Plays (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1920). Public domain.

Suggested time: 40 minutes

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The essay

6 points

The following excerpt is from Trifles, a one-act play by Susan Glaspell first performed in 1916. A farmer, John Wright, has been found strangled in his bed, and his wife, Minnie, is being held in the county jail. The sheriff, the county attorney (Mr Henderson) and a neighbor, Mr Hale, are searching the Wrights' farmhouse for evidence. Mrs Peters, the sheriff's wife, has come to collect a few things for Minnie, and Mrs Hale has come with her. Read the passage carefully. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how Glaspell uses literary elements and techniques to portray the contrasting ways the men and the women understand Minnie Wright's kitchen. In your essay: • State a thesis that answers the prompt with a defensible interpretation. • Choose evidence from the passage that supports your line of reasoning. • Explain how that evidence supports your line of reasoning. • Use grammar and punctuation that make your argument clear.

Your essay

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