Character Clues

Character Analysis

Direct Characterization

Playwrights have the luxury of a characterization shortcut that fiction writers don't get: stage directions. Check out this chunk from the first block of stage directions in the play:

[Mrs. Peters] 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 as she enters. (1)

Uh, yeah, we'd call that direct. Glaspell is telling us exactly what the main ladies are like and also secretly (or not so secretly) giving the actors tips on how they ought to play them. She must've had a pretty specific idea, especially since she was the one who originally played Mrs. Hale.

Speech and Dialogue

Even though stage directions are nice extras, the only thing an audience ever hears is the dialogue. So the best playwrights know how to work characterization magic only with what people say.

Sometimes it's really blatant, like Hale's big monologue where he describes how freaky Mrs. Wright was acting when he found her the morning before. Out favorite example is when Mrs. Hale describes Mr. Wright as "like a raw wind that gets to the bone" (105). It's a great description, right? It absolutely gives you the feel for just how harsh Mr. Wright could be.

Mrs. Hale is also the one who gives us a lot of the details on how Mrs. Wright got worn down over the years by being married to Mr. Wrong. Here's a great example:

MRS. HALE: Wright was close. I think maybe that's why she kept so much to herself. She didn't even go to Ladies Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn't do her part, and then you don't enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir. (58)

This gives you a really clear idea of just how sad poor Minnie Foster has become over the years. Even though this is filed under Speech and Dialogue, we could also stick it with Direct Characterization since were being directly told what Mrs. Wright was like.

While characters can tell us things about each other, they can also tell us a lot about themselves. For example, we can tell that Mrs. Peters isn't usually much of a rebel when she says stuff like "But Mrs. Hale, the law is the law," (71) and it's glaringly obvious that Mrs. Peters' husband, the Sheriff, is super sexist when he makes fun of the ladies for wondering whether Mrs. Wright was planning to quilt or knot the quilt.

Props

We also give Glaspell mad props for characterizing with... well... props. Even though Mrs. Wright never makes an appearance on stage, we get a real feel for her sad, lonely, and slightly creepy life as we watch Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters go through her stuff. Her broken preserve jars, quilt scraps, and empty rocking chair all give us a sense of dismal, housewife-y life.

The sad, lonely, slightly creepy levels are dialed to eleven when the ladies find Mrs. Wright's empty birdcage and the dead canary to go along with it. When we see these things we know just how starved Mrs. Wright must've been for friendship and any kind of beauty in her life. The dead canary's snapped neck also shows us just how mean and heartless Mr. Wright must've been.

Come on, dude. You seriously killed you wife's canary because it was annoying you?