Plot Summary

The sheriff, his wife, the county attorney, and the neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Hale, enter the kitchen of
the Wright household. Mr. Hale explains how he paid a visit to the house on the previous day. Once
there, Mrs. Wright greeted him, but behaved strangely. She eventually stated in a dull voice that her
husband was upstairs, dead. Note: Though Mrs. Wright is the central figure in the play, she never
appears onstage. She is only referred to by the on-stage characters.

The audience learns of John Wright’s murder through Mr. Hale’s exposition. He is the first (aside from
Mrs. Wright) to discover the body. We also learn that Mrs. Wright claimed that she was sound asleep
while someone strangled her husband. It seems obvious to the male characters that she killed her
husband, and she is been taken into custody as the prime suspect.

The attorney and sheriff decide that there is nothing important in the room: “Nothing here but kitchen
things.” (Feminist Criticism Hint: This line is the first of many disparaging comments said to minimize
the importance of women in society.) The men criticize Mrs. Wright’s housekeeping skills, irking Mrs.
Hale and the sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peters.

The men exit, heading upstairs to investigate the crime scene. The women remain in the kitchen.
Chatting to pass the time, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters notice vital details that the men would not care
about:

 Ruined fruit preserves

 Bread that has been left out of its box
 An unfinished quilt.
 A half clean / half messy table top
 An empty bird cage

Unlike the men who are looking for forensic evidence to solve the crime, the women in Susan
Glaspell's Trifles observe clues that reveal the bleakness of Mrs. Wright’s emotional life. They theorize
that Mr. Wright’s cold, oppressive nature must have been dreary to live with. Mrs. Hale comments
about Mrs. Wright being childless: “Not having children makes less work – but it makes a quiet house.”
The women are simply trying to pass the awkward moments with civil conversation. But to the
audience, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters unveil a psychological profile of a desperate housewife.

What Happened to the Bird?

When gathering up the quilting material, the two women discover a fancy little box. Inside, wrapped in
silk is a dead canary. Its neck has been wrung. The implication is that Minnie’s husband did not like
the canary’s beautiful song (a symbol of his wife’s desire for freedom and happiness). So, Mr. Wright
busted the cage door and strangled the bird.

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters do not tell the men about their discovery. Instead, Mrs. Hale puts the box
with the deceased bird into her coat pocket – resolving not to tell the men about this little “trifle” they
have uncovered.

The play ends with the characters exiting the kitchen and the women announcing that they have
determined Mrs. Wright’s quilt making style. (She “knots it” instead of “quilts it” – a play with words
denoting the way in which she killed her husband.)

Theme: Men Do Not Appreciate Women

The men within this play betray a sense of self-importance. They present themselves as tough,
serious-minded detectives, when in truth they are not nearly as observant as the female characters.
Their pompous attitude causes the women to feel defensive and form ranks. Not only do Mrs. Hale
and Mrs. Peters bond, but they also choose to hide evidence as an act of compassion for Mrs. Wright.
Stealing the box with the dead bird is an act of loyalty to their gender and an act of defiance against a
callous patriarchal society.

Roles
Mrs. Hale: She had not visited the Wright household for over a year because of its bleak, cheerless
atmosphere. She believes that Mr. Wright is responsible for crushing the merriment out of Mrs. Wright.
Now, Mrs. Hale feels guilty for not visiting more often. She believes she could have improved Mrs.
Wright’s outlook on life.
Mrs. Peter: She has tagged along to bring back clothes for the imprisoned Mrs. Wright. She can relate
to the suspect because they both know about “stillness.” Mrs. Peters reveals that her first child died at
the age of two. Because of this tragic experience, Mrs. Peters understands what it is like to lose a
loved one (in Mrs. Wright’s case - her songbird).
Mrs. Wright: Before she was married to John Wright, she was Minnie Foster. She was more cheerful
in her youth. Her clothes were more colorful. She loved to sing. Those attributes diminished after her
wedding day. Mrs. Hale describes Mrs. Wright’s personality:

"She was kind of like a bird herself – real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and – fluttery. How – she –
did – change."

The women are left alone. While gathering some household goods to make Mrs. Wright feel more at
ease in jail, they discuss Minnie Wright, her childhood as Minnie Foster, her life with John Wright, and
the quilt that she was making when she was taken to jail. The men reenter briefly, then leave. The
women discuss the state of the Wright household before Mr. Wright’s death. In the process, they
communicate how greatly Mrs. Wright had changed over the years and how depressing her life with
John Wright had been. The women express sympathy over what the kitchen disarray would mean
emotionally to Mrs. Wright and how much of an intrusion it was for her to have all of these outsiders
searching through her goods. The women discover Mrs. Wright’s pet bird. It has been killed, and Mrs.
Wright had hidden it in her sewing box. The women’s eyes meet, but they do not speak directly about
the bird. When she hears the men returning again, Mrs. Hale hides the dead bird.

Once the men have left again, the women discuss past pains and losses that parallel those that Mrs.
Wright has suffered. A boy killed Mrs. Peters’s kitten when she was a child, and she was childless for
a time, like Mrs. Wright. The women express a shared sense of responsibility for her isolation and
suggest that they were criminally negligent to allow her to be entirely alone. Just before the men
reenter, Mrs. Peters suggests that they are getting too upset over a dead bird.

The county attorney summarizes the case as he enters and indicates that the entire case is clear
except for a missing motive. As the investigation ends, the sheriff asks the attorney if he needs to
inspect the things the women are taking to Mrs. Wright in jail. The county attorney dismisses this
jokingly, suggesting that there is no need because the sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peters, is essentially married
to the law. When the men leave the room to check one last detail, the women’s eyes meet again. Mrs.
Peters tries to hide the box containing the dead bird in the bag of quilt pieces she is taking to Mrs.
Wright, but it does not fit. Mrs. Hale hides the box in her coat pocket. When the men reenter, the
women have one last chance to share this clue with them. They do not, and the play closes.

The title of the play is oozing with irony. The title comes from this gem of a line from Hale: "Well,
women are used to worrying about trifles" (132). He says this in response to the fact that Mrs. Wright
seems to be more worried about her preserves bursting than she is about the fact that she's being
held for murder.
After this line, all the guys yuck it up about how women never worry about important stuff, and then the
guys head off to go do important man stuff like looking through the bedroom for evidence.
The title's irony rears its head when Mrs. Hale's and Mrs. Peters' concern with trifling women stuff
ends up solving the mystery. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters would never have figured out what happened
if they hadn't stayed in the kitchen (a.k.a. the woman's place) and been looking through Mrs. Wright's
quilt scraps. So it seems like all this unimportant woman stuff weren't just trifles after all. The title also
works on a larger level: it also represents how women as a whole are treated like unimportant trifles.

They're protecting their fellow woman Mrs. Wright from a system of laws created by men.