Trifles
...the character of Mr. Wright. It also talks about the stereotypes that women faced. The play takes place in Wright's country farmhouse as the men of the play, the county attorney, the sheriff, and Mr. Hale, search for evidence as to the identity and, most importantly, the motive of the murderer. The attorney, with the intensions of proving that Mrs. Wright choked the husband to death, was interviewing Mr. Hale on what he saw when he came in to the house. The women, on the other hand, were just there to get some clothing for the wife who was in jail for suspected murder of her husband. However, the clues which would lead them to the answer are never found by the men. Instead it is their female counterparts who discover the evidence needed, but they choose not to tell the men what they found since the man were degrading them the whole time. After searching the house several times, tow of the men choose to stop and they leave while the attorney stays behind to find any sort of clue that could convict Mrs. Wright of the murder. The women withhold all the evidence they find, therefore getting back at them men for all the stereotypical and degrading comments they said. Thus allowing the attorney to attempt to find his own evidence and ending the play. Gaspell's play represents the misjudgment and stereotypes the women faced and how they dealt with those issues.
The men's one-sided view of the women prevents them from finding the key evidence that they need. The male investigators need to find, as Mrs. Peters puts it, "'a motive; something to show anger, or--sudden feeling'" (357). Yet the men never see the uneven sewing on a quilt Minnie Wright was working on before the murder. The quilt is a symbol of Minnie's agitation--her anger. The men, though, laugh at the women's wonderings about the quilt. To them it is of little importance. Likewise, the bird and...
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