Student worksheet · One-act play
Trifles
Susan Glaspell · 1916 · 5,271 words
Name ________________________ Date ________________________
Answer in complete sentences. Give source lines, chapters, parts or staves with each response.
- Identify two details in the initial stage direction and explain how each shapes what the audience expects the investigators to notice.
- Reconstruct Hale’s arrival on the previous morning. Separate his reported observation, Minnie’s statement, and his interpretation.
- Trace the stitches, cage and bird in the order in which the women encounter them. What does each add, and what remains unproved?
- Compare Mrs. Hale’s memory of Minnie with Mrs. Peters’s memories of the kitten and the child. What changes in their relationship?
- Who tries to move the box at the end and who succeeds? Explain how the final joke and the placement of the pocket communicate to an audience.
Essay
How does Glaspell use stage space, props and withheld speech to make the audience responsible for weighing evidence? Address a serious objection to the women’s decision.
Write at least 650 words on separate pages. Develop a thesis, interpret three located passages from different parts of the text, and address a serious counterreading.