Trifles Visions of America Quotes

A Midwestern kitchen. We are knee deep in Americana, folks. This play is set in the heart of a home in the heartland of America. However, we can't help but notice that something is wrong with this particular kitchen. It's gloomy, messy, and freezing cold. Could this represent that something is wrong with the heart of America as a whole?

Here's a sign of the times. Yes, in America's olden days, people sometimes shared telephone lines between households. Oh, the horror. If you don't believe us, check out this creepy old AT&T video in which marionettes lecture us on party line etiquette. Think about the ways the state of technology drastically affected the lives of Americans at the time.

Nothing transports us directly to a particular region more than hearing a little of that region's dialect. In these lines, we get a good example of the Midwestern dialect that Glaspell laces throughout the play. She probably knew the sound of it really well since she was from Iowa, and here she uses the sounds of her home region to add authenticity to the play.

This famous line gives us the title of the play, and it also gives us a good idea of the rampant sexism of America at this time. At the time this play was first produced, women didn't even have the right to vote. Many men actually thought that women didn't have the mental capacity to make informed decisions. What do you think? How are things different in America? What remains the same?

These days, people sometimes romanticize farm life. It's easy when you sit in front of a computer all day to daydream about being outside a sunny farm with your friendly cows. But this line reminds us that life for a farming family in America's Midwest was filled with tons of hard work. Before machines took over, the agricultural system that kept this country fed was powered by the sweat and strain of tons of people.

Yeah, here we go. This line perfectly captures what America expected women to be at this time.

A good woman was a good homemaker... period. Women like Susan Glaspell challenged this idea by living lives outside of the traditional roles forced upon women by the male-dominated America of the time.

All this stuff about the cherry preserves gives us a nice detail of rural America at the time. This is a time when people were way less likely to go buy a jar of cherries from the store. Folks grew the cherries themselves and jarred the cherries themselves to boot. These days, there is lots of buzz about locally grown foods, but in the time of the play it was just the way of life.

This mention of the Ladies Aid gives a tasty slice of American history. (We say tasty because these ladies may well have been the inventors of bake sales.) These women's organizations actually started during the Civil War, when women in the North and South formed groups to help send medical supplies and other must-have to the troops.

After the war, Ladies Aid groups stuck around and put their energy towards lots of other charitable causes. They also were important to early feminists since they showed the big things women could achieve when they organized.  In the time of the play, the Ladies Aid was one of the few places where women were allowed to congregate without their husbands snooping around, so it's extra sad that Mrs. Wright didn't take part.

She was making a quilt, huh? Talk about Americana-rama. It's like we just stepped into a Cracker Barrel. Just like with the cherry preserves, this quilt making gives us the flavor of a time in America when many more people created with their hands.

Go forth and procreate! Getting married and having babies (a.k.a. family life) was at the core of American society in early 20th century America. This line shows us just how ingrained in the American psyche having kids was. It's almost horrific for Mrs. Hale to think about the fact that Mrs. Wright didn't have any children. How do you think America's attitude towards family life has changed? How has it stayed the same?