Drama Trifles
Drama Trifles
Drama Trifles
Setting in drama is
• similar to the setting in fiction in that it includes spatial setting and temporal setting.
• unique in that it requires an audience to imagine that a theater of some sort is part of
another time or place.
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Elements Unique to Drama
Before the modern period, plays were performed outdoors in the daylight and involved few
pieces of scenery and little furniture or costume design.
Today, modern plays include design, decoration, and scenery or set on stage :
The elements of set are
1. scenery: the large pieces that create the physical environment like furniture, or a
backdrop painted to look like a specific location such as a mountain, a city, or a starry
night.
2. props: the objects used on stage such as a brick used to throw at someone, or a picture
held by a character. Effective plays often use props as metaphors, allowing objects to
carry symbolic weight and convey key thematic points.
3. costumes: the clothes and attire worn by actors to portray their characters. Costumes
serve to portray characterization, establish time and place, and sometimes may carry
symbolic meanings.
Setting and staging go hand in hand. The set and props, along with the costumes, contribute
to the setting.
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Elements of Drama
• Character & Dialogue
• Plot and Structure
• Tone, Language, and Symbol
• Theme
Character
A character is an imaginary person who takes part in the action of a play.
Drama includes patterns of characters found in other genres:
• protagonist
• antagonist
• villain
• hero/heroine
• foil
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Character & Dialogue
Drama typically lacks the narrator and narration found in fiction and instead presents the
action directly to the audience through dialogue—the lines spoken by characters, which
tend to form the bulk of the dramatic work.
Dialogue is one of the primary ways that characterization occurs: it helps us to form ideas
about the characters and their personality traits.
When an actor is “in character” it means he/she is speaking as though they really are the
people they are portraying in the drama.
Knowing the character’s motive would affect how the performer would deliver the
character’s lines.
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Plot and Structure
Plot in drama involves the sequencing and pacing of action similar to fiction. When
we analyze the plot of a play, however, we must consider both what happens and
the presentation of what happens as part of a performance.
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Tone
Tone refers to the mood or attitude a literary work takes toward its subject or that a character in
the work conveys, especially as revealed through diction. A play’s tone can be conveyed via
• stage directions indicating the manner with which the actor delivers a line “intensely” or
“angrily.”
• an actor’s interpretations of the author’s word choice or the vocal tone.
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A play’s tone is also shaped by:
• dramatic irony in which a character’s knowledge or expectation is contradicted by what
the audience knows.
• situational irony occurs when the outcome of the action contradicts a character’s and
audience’s expectations.
• verbal irony occurs when speech and action don’t match, or the audience recognizes
meaning the speaker doesn’t realize.
Monologues, or extended speeches by one character, often contain important images, metaphors,
and other figures of speech.
Language and Symbol
Monologue, or a long speech, usually in a play but also in other genres, spoken by one person and
uninterrupted by the speech of anyone else.
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Theme
Theme is usually defined as a statement or assertion about the
subject of a work and about the comprehensive impact of an
entire work.
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Elements of Literary Genres
Elements of literature Fiction Poetry Drama
narrator ✓ Narrative poems No narrator tells us what is happening or
shapes our responses
plot ✓ ✓ ✓
exposition ✓ ✓ ✓ emerges through dialogue to explain past
and current situation
characters ✓ ✓ ✓ includes more dialogue
settings ✓ ✓ ✓
action ✓ ✓ ✓
Figurative language & ✓ ✓ ✓
symbols
theme ✓ ✓ ✓
Stage directions, sets & none none ✓
props
Drama Subgenres
Drama, like other genres of literature, has various subgenres:
• pastoral: describe and idealize the simple life of country folk, usually shepherds who live
a painless life in a world full of beauty, music, and love.
• satire: holds up human failings to ridicule and censure.
• farce: characterized by broad humor, exaggerations, absurdity, and physical humor.
• comedy: intends to entertain and amuse an audience. Values are determined by the
general opinion of society, and characters are defined primarily by their social roles.
Comedies end when the main character or characters accept a proper social role, often
through marriage.
• tragedy: tend to focus on a person of high rank who is brought to a disastrous end in his
or her confrontation with a superior force (fortune, the gods, human nature, universal
values), but also comes to understand the meaning of his or her deeds and to accept an
appropriate punishment. Tragedies end in the character’s enlightenment and acceptance
of punishment, often death.
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Questions to Ask When Reading a Play (See pp. 1251-52)
Expectations What do you expect from the title? from the first sentence, paragraph, or speech?
Characterization Who are the characters? Is there a list of characters printed after the title of the
play? What do you notice about their names or any identification of their roles,
character types, or relationships?
Plot What happens in the play?
What are the differences between the beginning, middle, and end of the play?
Setting What is the setting of the play? When does the action occur? Do the stage
directions specify a year or era, a day of the week, a season, a time of day?
Style What do you notice about how the play is written? What is the style of the
dialogue? Are the sentences and speeches short or long? Is the vocabulary simple
or complex? Do characters ever speak at the same time, or do they always take
turns? Does the play instruct actors to be silent for periods of time?
Theme What does the play mean? Can you express its theme or themes?
Information
Title “Trifles”
Author Susan Glaspell
MRS. PETER’S, SHERIFF’S WIFE As a sheriff's wife, she initially seems concerned about following
the law. Later on, she comes to empathize with Mrs. Wright (she
does not reveal the discovery of the dead canary to the men).
COUNTRY ATTORNEY Hale also acts condescendingly toward the female characters,
He questions Hale about his interactions with Mrs. Wright.
MRS. HALE She recognizes the difficulties that women share and is the first to
conceal evidence of Mrs. Wright’s wrongdoing.
HALE The neighbor. He discovered Mr. Wright’s body the previous day.
MR. WRIGHT An aggressive farmer and the victim of murder.
MRS. MINNIE WRIGHT The wife of the murdered John Wright, and his killer. Mrs. Hale
remembers Minnie for her youthful innocence and happiness before
she was married.
Introduction and Stage Directions
SCENE:
The kitchen in the now abandoned farmhouse of JOHN WRIGHT, a gloomy kitchen, and left
without having been put in order—unwashed pans under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the
bread-box, a dish-towel on the table—other signs of incompleted work. At the rear the outer door
opens and the SHERIFF comes in followed by the COUNTY ATTORNEY and HALE.
The SHERIFF and HALE are men in middle life, the COUNTY ATTORNEY is a young man; all are
much bundled up and go at once to the stove. They are followed by the two women—
the SHERIFF’s wife first; she is a slight wiry woman, a thin nervous face. MRS. HALE is larger and
would ordinarily be called more comfortable looking, but she is disturbed now and looks fearfully
about as she enters. The women have come in slowly, and stand close together near the door.
Stage Directions
SHERIFF: (rubbing his hands over the cold stove) "This feels good. Come up to
the fire, ladies."
(The two women, MRS. HALE and MRS. PETERS, go up and stand around the
stove, a little crowd of women. The SHERIFF, HALE, and COUNTY ATTORNEY
are in a group by the stove.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY: (to the other two) "I'd like to talk more of that at the
inquest, but I can't do it alone. I'll have to make a fire and get things to cook
for them. (To the SHERIFF.) Let's go out to the barn and get that cleared
away."
Questions about “Trifles”
1. What are the “trifles” that the men ignore, and the two women notice? Why do the
men dismiss them and why do the women see these things as significant?
2. What is the thematic importance of these “trifles”?
3. What does the bird symbolize in the play? What does the birdcage symbolize in
the play?
4. What is an example of situational irony in the play?
5. What is an example of dramatic irony in the play?
Symbolism and Situational Irony in “Trifles”
1. What are the “trifles” that the men ignore, and the two women notice? Why do the men dismiss them and why do the
women see these things as significant?
The women notice small "trifles" that are significant clues that reveal Mrs. Wright's motivation to murder her abusive
husband such as the dead canary, the broken birdcage, the messy sewing.
The men dismiss them because they assume the women are incapable of understanding the importance of the case,
while the women reveal their empathy and understanding of Mrs. Wright.
2. What does the bird symbolize in the play? What does the birdcage symbolize in the play?
Minnie is linked to the bird through Mrs. Hale’s memory of her as a young unmarried woman who liked to sing. The
strangled bird that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters discover explains the motivation behind Minnie Wright's crime, but also
symbolizes John Wright's abusive treatment of his wife.
The birdcage symbolizes the prison of Mrs. Wright's marriage.
What is an example of situational irony in the play?
Two women solve a crime instead of their husbands, one of whom is a sheriff.
We would expect the sheriff to solve the crime given his career path and experience, but the women show more care and
attention to the details of the home and its contents, which enables them to uncover the character Mrs.
Wright’s motive for murdering her husband.
What is an example of dramatic irony in the play?
The dramatic irony is produced by the fact that the audience knows something that the men don't know—namely, that
the women have found the key piece of evidence that could be used to convict Minnie and, moreover, that the men have
ignored this evidence and written it off as "women's trifles."
Conclusion
This concludes the Lecture PowerPoint presentation for Drama: Understanding the Text.
For more resources, please visit https://digital.wwnorton.com/lit14.