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Trifles is a one-act play by Susan Glaspell. The play covers the aftermath of the murder-by-strangulation of a farmer named John Wright. During the play’s first run in 1916 at the Wharf Theater in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Glaspell appeared as the character Mrs. Hale. The play was loosely inspired by the real-life, 1900 murder of John Hossack, an Iowa farmer who died due to axe wounds he sustained while sleeping in bed. His wife, Margaret Hossack, was subsequently tried and convicted—although the verdict was eventually overturned due to a technicality. Glaspell reported on the Hossack murder and the ensuing trial while employed at the Des Moines Daily News. Her journalistic work with the case inspired both Trifles and a short story titled “A Jury of Her Peers.”
The play opens in the somber and empty Wright farmhouse. The County Attorney—George Henderson—and Sheriff Henry Peters converse with Mr. Hale, a neighboring farmer. They repeatedly direct Mr. Hale away from speaking about Mr. Wright’s roughness and non-consideration of his wife, and toward recounting the details of his interaction with Mrs. Wright on the day that the murder was discovered.
Mr. Hale recalls that he stopped by the Wright farmhouse that day to ask if John would “go in with [him] on a party telephone” (6).
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By Susan Glaspell