Mr Wright example essay topic

In many plays, as we are reading, we try to understand a character by his or her actions. When a character is angry, he or she shouts, when characters are sad they cry, and when they are happy they laugh. But what if you are never introduced to the characters because of certain consequences. They existed once but no longer do, and now they are only spoken of. How would you learn anything about these characters? For instance in the play Trifles, the plot starts off with one main character dead while the other is in jail.

In this play, it's the small things like the props that reveal characteristics about Mr. and Mrs. Wright that help you understand the play better. We may not have their emotions written on paper but because of props: the kitchen items, a dead bird and a rocking chair, that is all we need to understand how Mr. and Mrs. Wright used to be! The fist scene is introduced to us with the setting of an abandoned farmhouse and a gloomy kitchen; a kitchen that was left extremely messy. A dirty towel rack, unwashed pans, and many signs of incomplete work, hint to the reader that Mrs. Wright did not care for her kitchen.

However, later on, we find out the hidden truth. From her preserves, her fruits and her bread we realize Mrs. Wright did take care of her kitchen. So, while Mrs. Wright is in jail she asks for her apron and worries about her fruit. From that overall example, props show that Mrs. Wright's kitchen was her little world she kept it clean and her preserves showed her labor. Later on, found hidden away is a dead bird, and, go, from the time that the bird was alive to its demise-what is revealed about Mr. and Mrs. Wright? Perhaps when the bird was alive, it was Mrs. Wright's only companion, as she had no friends.

Maybe this bird also symbolizes how Mrs. Wright used to be free, beautiful, and always stood up in her choir and sang when she was Minnie Foster. Later, when Mrs. Wright cooked and cleaned and could no longer sing in the presence of her husband perhaps it was the bird that then sang. Mrs. Wright, isolated from the world, enjoyed only the company of a bird. So, as this prop symbolized Mrs. Wright's only little happiness, it also symbolized a darker side. We learn Mr. Wright was fed up with this singing bird so he took it and broke its neck, resulting in its death. Thus this dead bird shows Mr. Wright's anger and how much he controlled Mrs. Wright.

Most likely he was controlling anything she did, anywhere she went and controlling her emotional being as well. A broken birds neck now symbolized that last break of a sane but depressed woman. At that point in the play, a sane woman has now lost control and she is soon to plot an action leading to the last important prop: the rocking chair! I find this rocking chair so important because it represents Mrs. Wright at a point of distress, nervousness and complete despair inside.

As she sat on this rocking chair sewing, she thought of all that had happened. While she is messing up her quilt pattern, this rocking chair now becomes the place of remembrance for Mrs. Wright and the chair she will now use to plot her crime. This chair definitely symbolizes Mrs. Wright not only in her plotting but also this is where she was sitting after the murder. In the play a neighbor looking for Mr. Wright finds a mentally disturbed Mrs. Wright talking nonsense while rocking in the rocking chair. This prop is never sat on again in the play but is on stage and sends a chill to every character that thinks of what might have happen.

In this play, do to extreme circumstances, a kitchen is left messy but in that condition it no way shows how Mrs. Wright really was. So we should not judge a character on just the opening scene or setting. But rather we should let the props reveal the hidden truths and not let surface settings push us away from the truth. A chair for relaxation becomes the eerie silence of a chair belonging to a murder. So, while a character's actions may not be clear for the reader to visualize, small props may give away more drama than the character ever could!