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Psychoanalysis of Trifles

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Psychoanalysis of Trifles
Psychoanalysis of Trifles
A.Wilson
South University Online

In the short play Trifles by Susan Glaspell there is a deeper way of evaluating characters and symbols within the story. The Character I will attempt to evaluate will be Mrs. Wright. I will evaluate Mrs. Wright using a psychoanalysis, meaning I will probe deep within Mrs. Wright’s mind and feelings to reveal some things to you that you may not have noticed by just reading the story, or using your naked eye. I will be attempting to show you how Mrs. Wright’s began suffering, and going insane long before her bird was murdered. In viewing Mrs. Wright’s character in the Trifles by Susan Glaspell I would have to say that Mrs. Wright is insane and that is what ultimately caused her to kill her husband. If you look deeper within the story, you will see that Mrs. Wright is suffering from much depression; the story does not tell us this directly, but it may be inferred considering all she must have endured living with her husband. Here we have a woman who used to love singing, “She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir” (Glaspell, 1916, p.142), but then her husband Mr. “Wright wouldn’t like the bird—a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too” (Glaspell, 1916, p.144); so we see there how Mrs. Wright was beginning to change, we see that she used to sing, and love singing, but when she reached into her marriage the singing stopped, she could no longer be the lovely, singing Minnie Foster; we understand how her state of mind, or being was changed. “She was kind of like a bird herself—real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery. How—she—did—change” (Glaspell, 1916, p.144). Something had changed her; it was her marriage to her husband. Mrs. Wright’s marriage to her husband was an unhappy one. With Mr. “Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come in” (Glaspell,1916, p.144),she became lonely



References: Glaspell, S. (1916). Trifles. In D.L. Pike and A.M. Acosta 's (Eds.) Literature: A world of writing stories, poems, plays, and essays [VitalSource digital version] (pp. 139-145). Boston, MA: Pearson Learning Solutions.

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