Sunday, October 14, 2018

Related to the theme in Trifles, why does Mrs. Hale feel guilty for not helping Mrs. Wright?

The following quote from Mrs. Hale describes her feelings:

I might have known she needed help! I know how things can be—for women. I tell you, it's queer. Mrs. Peters. We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things—it's all just a different kind of the same thing.

Mrs. Hale strongly suspects that Mrs. Minnie Wright, born Minnie Foster, killed her husband, John Wright. However, she understands because she "knew John Wright" and knew that he "wouldn't like the bird" that Mrs. Wright owned, "a thing that sang." Mrs. Wright also used to sing herself, and "[h]e killed that, too."
Mrs. Hale's description of the women's lives as "queer" illustrates the way in which domesticity isolated women. They all did the same things—cooking and cleaning—but quietly kept their feelings about their lives to themselves.
Mrs. Hale feels guilty for not recognizing the change in Mrs. Wright from the time when she was Minnie Foster and sang in the choir wearing "a white dress with blue ribbons." She had loved singing and loved the bird that sang. The things that she loved were taken away from her. If Mrs. Hale, who understood her condition, had known this, she might have done something before Mrs. Wright committed her desperate act.

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