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In Trifles, what five items did the women find in the kitchen that suggested Mrs. Wright's guilt?

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In Trifles, the women find five items suggesting Mrs. Wright's guilt: a birdcage with a broken door, a dead bird wrapped in silk, a quilt with erratic stitching, unwashed pans and dishes, and a new loaf of bread left out. These clues indicate a disrupted household and suggest Mrs. Wright's motive for killing her husband, particularly the dead bird symbolizing her own suppressed life.

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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 that she was apparently interrupted while canning or jarring preserves. They recognize that the task is labor-intensive, and no woman would leave this work out to be ruined unless she were interrupted by something more pressing. Second, and more generally, the women observe that the kitchen is unusually messy. The women establish the idea that they and Mrs. Wright are careful housekeepers and would not have left their homes in such disorder if not for good reason. Thirdly, in the adjacent room, they notice Mrs. Wright's sewing and see that she has dropped a stitch. Contrasting this section with the rest of the quilt indicates that Mrs. Wright was disturbed while working on this last part....

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Her work is not consistent with her earlier, neat stitching.

The fourth and fifth clues, related to the bird, are the most damning. The women find the body of Mrs. Wright's songbird, which symbolically represents her. Mr. Wright killed the bird, just as he killed Mrs. Wright's voice over the course of their marriage. They also notice that the door to the birdcage has been damaged in some act of violence. The women infer that Mr. Wright killed the bird and that his wife retaliated by killing him. They feel guilty and empathetic toward Mrs. Wright, thinking their neglect of her friendship over the years may have exacerbated the loneliness she felt at home. Therefore, they choose to hide the evidence from their husbands, who are examining the home for evidence of a motive.

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I can get you started with these examples and explanations of them. 

The women found a quilt that had not yet been pieced together.  The pieces indicate Minne's frame of mind since her stitches were even and neat in some pieces and very loose and erratic in others.

They found her sewing box with the dead canary lovingly wrapped up in a piece of silk.  This indicates that she loved the bird and planned to bury it since she didn't just toss it out.

They found the birdcage with the broken door which gave the women the hint that there was a bird.  The broken door indicates that there was an act of violence by a human...a cat couldn't yank the door like that.

They also note that her fruit jars are broken from the freeze and that the table is half wiped, half covered in flour which indicates she was in her baking day.  They comment on how she was usually a good housekeeper, but the disarray of things hints that Minnie was troubled by something.

Good Luck!

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