Both the short story "Lamb to the Slaughter" and the play Trifles depict male detectives who are so blinded by their preconceived notions about women and women's roles that they miss the evidence that is right under their noses.

In "Lamb to the Slaughter," Mary hits her husband on the back of the skull with a frozen lamb chop and kills him because he has told her is leaving her for another woman. In Trifles, Minnie—who has long been abused by her husband—similarly snaps and murders him when he kills her pet canary.

In both cases, the detectives miss important evidence because they accept the surface facade that women present. Mary seems sweet, innocent, and domestic; it never occurs to the detectives that she is feeding them the murder weapon when she serves them a lamb dinner. In the same vein, the women in Trifles can guess from the dead canary that Minnie is the murderer, but the men completely overlook that important piece of evidence. They don't even focus on exploring the domestic spaces of the house, such as the kitchen, because these places hold little value to them.

It is also interesting that in both works it is an animal strongly associated with the woman that provides the chief clue to the murder. The pregnant Mary is seemingly soft and gentle like a lamb, while Minnie is like her caged canary: seemingly unable to escape. Both women show, however, that they have more to them than their outward, stereotyped appearances might reveal.