Trifles

In the stage directions, Mrs. Hale is introduced as a larger woman than Mrs. Peters and one who "would ordinarily be called more comfortable looking," were it not for the fact that she is looking...

In Susan Glaspell's play Trifles, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters discover several significant pieces of evidence, which establish Mrs. Wright's motive to kill her husband. While the men are searching...

Though she is never seen in the play, Minnie Wright is the primary focus of the narrative. By the beginning of the action, the characters are exploring the now empty home of Minnie and her husband,...

It is a dead canary that Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale find in Mrs. Wright’s sewing box. Their “growing comprehension of horror” is due to the fact that in this moment, they realized exactly why Mrs....

The women piece together what happened by looking at the trifles in the kitchen that the male police officers disparage. They know that Minnie Wright killed her husband John Wright. First, they...

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are physically contrasted in the stage directions at the beginning of the play. Mrs. Hale is larger and, ordinarily, more comfortable looking, whereas Mrs. Peters is...

Trifles is a one-act play first written and performed in 1916. In it, Glaspell explores the differences between the male and female experience in that time period. As the play opens, Mrs. Hale and...

The idea that Mrs. Wright was going to knot her quilt rather than sew it comes up over and over in the play, pointing to its importance. When a person knots a quilt, he or she uses fewer stitches,...

The title Trifles refers to the dismissive way the men investigating the case of John Wright's murder treat all the bits of evidence that would have led them to solve the crime had they paid...

While the men conduct their investigation of the Wright property, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters remain in the kitchen, where Mrs. Wright spent the majority of her time, and begin to notice small...

Trifles is a one-act play that concerns the murder of Mr. Wright, an abusive husband who was killed by his wife. The characters of the story intend to piece together the events that led up to the...

There are a number of symbols in Trifles, but one could reasonably argue that the most important is Mrs. Wright's dead bird. The dead bird, killed in a fit of rage by Mr. Wright, represents the...

The bird is important because it provides a possible motive for the murder of Mr. Wright. When the women find the bird, with its neck broken, wrapped in a piece of silk in the sewing box, they...

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters do not exactly conceal the evidence. They simply do not bring it to the attention of the men. They do this because they feel the killing of Mr. Wright was justified. There...

An important literary device used in the play is foregrounding. Glaspell focuses centrally on what would normally be marginalized characters in a murder mystery: the wives of the detectives. Rather...

Trifles is a play of considerable nuance and it would be foolish to try to extract a single message or moral from it. One of its many meanings, however, is the idea that unquestioned dominance...

Situational irony occurs when events turn out in a way that runs contrary to expectations. Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows what one or more of the characters in a text do not. In...

There are several clues that the women use to piece together Mrs. Wright's motive for murdering her husband. These are all found either in the kitchen or in the adjacent room. First, they notice...

There is not too much time for a character to change and develop over this short a play. However, as Mrs. Peters becomes more aware of the circumstances of Minnie Wright's life, her sense of...

Such an interesting question! At first, it seems the protagonist is John Wright, the deceased, who has obviously (maybe) been murdered by his wife, Minnie Wright. This would make her the...

Before marriage, Mrs. Hale says that Mrs. Wright—when she was still Minnie Foster—"used to wear pretty clothes and be lively." She was "one of the town girls singing in the choir," but this was...

More than anything else, Mrs. Hale is motivated by guilt. She's always regretted not having reached out to her neighbor, Minnie Foster, by visiting her more often. As Mrs. Hale takes a good look...

In Susan Glaspell’s play, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters accompany their husbands to the Wright household. They proceed to look for clues that reveal Mrs. Wright's motive for killing her husband....

Throughout the play, the men laugh at the women for their interest in what they consider "trifles" of no importance. For example, as the play is beginning, the sheriff, Henry Peters, laughs at the...

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters decide not to reveal the evidence they find that implicates Mrs. Wright in the murder of her husband. The main clue they uncover is Mrs. Wright's dead bird, which is in...

The title of Susan Glaspell's play, Trifles, is a meaningful clue to the reason that the men do not find the evidence of Mrs. Wright's having killed her husband. For, it is the small, apparently...

Out of the many themes that this story expands upon, the most salient is gender inequality. A lot of topics surface under the umbrella of this theme. Among many other subthemes that exist within...

Even though it is never actually confirmed, Glaspell makes it quite clear that Mrs. Wright did in fact kill her husband by strangling him with a rope. Mrs. Wright insists that her husband was...

The setting of Trifles is crucial to helping the audience understand Minnie Wright’s life and the reason she behaved as she did. In general terms, the characters state that the Wright farm was in...

In Susan Glaspell's play Trifles, Mr. Wright was strangled to death with a rope in the middle of the night by his wife, Minnie Wright. At the beginning of the play, George Henderson, Sheriff Henry...

The conflict that seems to be most evident in the play Trifles is the abrogation of the basic rights for safety and liberty, that all females deserve, by a male-dominated society. The tendency to...

In the written text of a play, dialogue is the lines that the characters speak, while the author’s stage directions may provide background, describe the set, flesh out characterization, indicate...

In Susan Glaspell's play Trifles, several neighbors enter the Wrights' farmhouse to investigate the murder of John Wright, and Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters end up discovering significant evidence...

In Susan Glaspell's play Trifles, the men overlook the signs that are obvious because they are not looking for them. They concentrate on finding evidence of someone coming into the house but fail...

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are two women who are basically acquaintances and who are united in this play by their husbands. The men are investigating a crime scene: Mr. Wright has been murdered and...

Susan Glaspell’s play operates successfully on several levels, so an effective thesis statement will depend on identifying one significant aspect on which to build. The play is a mystery insofar as...

In Susan Glaspell's play Trifles, the sheriff, county attorney, and neighboring farmer arrive at the Wright homestead to investigate the murder of Mr. Wright. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters tag along to...

Of course, the word trifles means something of little value or importance; however, as the title of Susan Glaspell's play, the word is certainly used ironically as it is, indeed, the seemingly...

Sherlock Holmes remarked several times that his method was founded upon the observation of trifles, from which he was able to deduce matters of great importance. This is a convincing description of...

The kitchen in Glaspell's Trifles has a specific significance as the setting for the play. Minnie Wright is accused of murdering her husband in his sleep. When officials come to look for evidence,...

The broken jars are a symbol of how Mrs. Wright snapped and exploded, killing her husband. When they come to investigate, the men notice that Mrs. Wright's glass jars of preserves have exploded,...

In the one-act play by Susan Glaspell, Trifles, we find the characters of Mrs. Hale and Mrs Peters collecting items that Minnie Wright has requested from her jail cell, where she is held in...

This statement, from which the play derives its title, is ironic because the resolution of the murder depends entirely on those "trifles." For all their bluster, the men are mostly clueless as to...

The suspect of the murder of her husband, Mrs. Wright seems to have greatly changed from her youth thirty years ago in which she has been described by Mrs. Hale as "...one of the town girls singing...

The following lines highlight how Mrs. Hale reacts to the men's behavior. Mrs. Hale is a little irritated that the men (county attorney George Henderson and sheriff Henry Peters) feel free to...

In Susan Glaspell's play, Trifles, Mrs. Minnie Wright has been accused of murdering her husband as he slept. A group of men and a pair of women arrive at the beginning of the play, entering the...