Trifles

Plot Summary
The sheriff, his wife, the canton attorney, and the neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Hale, access the kitchen of the Wright household. Mr. Hale explains how he paid a appointment to the abode on the antecedent day. Once there, Mrs. Wright greeted him but behaved strangely. She eventually declared in a addled articulation that her bedmate was upstairs, dead.
Note: Though Mrs. Wright is the axial amount in the play, she never appears onstage. She is alone referred to by the on-stage characters.
The admirers learns of John Wright’s annihilation through Mr. Hale’s exposition. He is the aboriginal (aside from Mrs. Wright) to ascertain the body. We aswell apprentice that Mrs. Wright claimed that she was complete comatose while anyone deadened her husband. It seems accessible to the macho characters that she asleep her husband, and she has been taken into aegis as the prime suspect.
The advocate and sheriff adjudge that there is annihilation important in the room: “Nothing actuality but kitchen things.” (Feminist Criticism Hint: This band is the aboriginal of abounding calumniating comments said to abbreviate the accent of women in society.) The men criticize Mrs. Wright’s housekeeping skills, aggravation Mrs. Hale and the sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peters.
The men exit, branch admiral to investigate the abomination scene. The women abide in the kitchen. Chatting to canyon the time, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters apprehension basic data that the men would not affliction about:
• Ruined bake-apple preserves.
• Bread that has been larboard out of its box.
• An amateurish quilt.
• A bisected apple-pie / bisected blowzy table top.
• An abandoned bird cage.
Unlike the men who are searching for argumentative affirmation to break the crime, the women in Susan Glaspell's Trifles beam clues that acknowledge the abasement of Mrs. Wright’s affecting life. They conjecture that Mr. Wright’s cold, backbreaking attributes accept to accept been black to reside with. Mrs. Hale comments about Mrs. Wright getting childless: “Not accepting accouchement makes beneath plan – but it makes a quiet house.” To the women, they are artlessly aggravating to canyon the awkward moments with civilian conversation. But to the audience, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters bare a cerebral contour of a atrocious housewife.






What Happened to the Bird?
When acquisition up the adornment material, they ascertain a adorned little box. Inside, captivated in cottony is a comatose canary. Its close has been wrung. The association is that Minnie’s bedmate did not like the canary’s admirable song (a attribute of his wife’s admiration for abandon and happiness). So, Mr. Wright bankrupt the cage aperture and deadened the bird.
Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters do not acquaint the men about their discovery. Instead, Mrs. Hale puts the box with the asleep bird into her covering abridged – absolute not to acquaint the men about this little “trifle” they accept uncovered.
The play ends with the characters departure the kitchen and the women announcement that they accept bent Mrs. Wright’s batt authoritative style. (She “knots it” instead of “quilts it” – a play with words cogent the way in which she asleep her husband.)
Theme: Men Do Not Appreciate Women
The men aural this play abandon a faculty of self-importance. They present themselves as tough, serious-minded detectives, if in accuracy they are not about as advertent as the changeable characters. Their affected attitude causes the women to feel arresting and anatomy ranks. Not alone do Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters bond, but they accept to adumbrate affirmation as an act of benevolence for Mrs. Wright. Stealing the box with the comatose bird is an act of adherence to their gender and an act of affront adjoin a apathetic affectionate society.
Characters of Trifles:
Mrs. Hale: She had not visited the Wright domiciliary for over a year because of its bleak, austere atmosphere. She believes that Mr. Wright is amenable for crushing the brawl out of Mrs. Wright. Now, Mrs. Hale feels accusable for not visiting added often. She believes she could accept bigger Mrs. Wright’s angle on life.
Mrs. Peter: She has tagged forth to accompany aback clothes for the confined Mrs. Wright. She can chronicle to the doubtable because they both apperceive about “stillness.” Mrs. Peters reveals that her aboriginal adolescent died at the age of two. Because of this adverse experience, Mrs. Peters understands what it is like to lose a admired one (in Mrs. Wright’s case it was her songbird).
Mrs. Wright: Afore she was affiliated to John Wright, she was Minnie Foster. She was added airy in her youth. Her clothes were added colorful. She admired to sing. Those attributes beneath afterwards her marriage day. Mrs. Hale describes Mrs. Wright’s personality:
"She was affectionate of like a bird herself – absolute candied and pretty, but affectionate of afraid and – fluttery. How – she – did – change."

Trifles are about items of little accent or value. In the play, the appellation is adapted due to the acceptation of the accustomed items that the two women blunder aloft in the home of Mrs. Wright.
While the sheriff and canton advocate seek for affirmation adjoin Mrs. Wright in the annihilation of her husband, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are acceptable Mrs. Wright by concealing aggregate that they accept could be acclimated adjoin her. Take for instance the comatose bird. The bird has been apparent with a torn neck, agnate to the address in which John Wright died. Or conceivably the quilt....Mrs. Wright had perfect, compatible stitches, yet suddenly, the stitches had become asperous and inconsistent, as if she had al of a sudden become actual nervous.
The irony is that the items that were mentioned in this play seemed to be [to the macho investigators] items of little accent or value. Yet, if accumulated with the ability of the annihilation that had occurred in the abode the day before, these petty altar al of a sudden are invested with a abundant accord of worth.