Trifle: something of little value, substance, or importance. In the short play "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell this is what the men accuse the women of "constantly worrying over". This play is set in the early 1900's and is about the murder of a man and trying to find clues as to why he was murdered. They have his wife in custody but don't know of a motive. I find in this story that the women are more intoned with what goes on around them. This was first in evidence when the men noticed a mess in the cabinet. Mrs. Peters, the sheriff's wife states, " Oh, her fruit; it did freeze. She said the fire"d go out and her jars would break." The men didn't realize that this is what happened. The men were looking for obvious clues whereas the women weren't really looking for clues at all but sat discussing the little things that they noticed that were different or odd to them. The author, I don't believe, is trying to show the men as inept or incompetent as much as showing that the women saw things in a different way and the reasons why. .
The ladies saw the true meaning of the quilt, the canary and the birdcage. In the quilt the ladies noticed that that something must have upset Mrs. Wright because one stitch "was all over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn't know what she was about," stated Mrs. Hale. The ladies before noticing this discrepancy in the quilting were wondering if she was "knotting" her quilt, upon hearing this the men made fun of the ladies and what they worry about. This is where subconsciously we find the women beginning to peace together what happened. The comment " she didn't know what she was about" shows the ladies recognize that something had been upsetting Mrs. Wright. .
We then have the women discussing the birdcage they found. The first thing they notice was the door on the birdcage had been damaged and wondered why. This led to Mrs. Hale remembering when Mrs.
