Trifles by Susan Glaspell: An Analysis

The word trifles means a thing of little meaning or value according to the free online dictionary. In the play we see a lot of trifles; to me these trifles are the material things that pretty much helped solve the case in the play, for example; the mess in the kitchen, the dirty towels and the fruit. Mrs. Peter (to the other woman): oh, her fruit; it did freeze. (To the lawyer.) She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire’d go out and her jars would break. Sheriff (rises): well, can you beat the woman! Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves. County Attorney: I guess before we’re through she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about. Hale: well, women are used to worrying over trifles page 961. To the man the quilt and the cage of the canary are also trifles, to them those things have such little value that they even laugh at the woman when they talk about the quilt Mrs. Hale: it’s a log cabin pattern. Pretty isn’t it? I wonder if she was goin’ to quilt it or just knot it? Sheriff: They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it! (The men laugh and the women look abashed.)
When it comes to the peers I would say that the two ladies are the peers. The two women were curious of what had really happened but they also put themselves in Mrs. Wrights place more than once to understand what she was feeling. Mrs. Hale: I’d hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping and criticizing page 962. The two woman talked about moments of their lives that at some point made them feel like they were dead alive, when Mrs. Peters finds the bird cage and asks Mrs. Hale if Mrs. Wright had a bird, Mrs. Hale says she doesn’t know but she says that Mrs. Wright used to sing real pretty and that her husband killed that too. Here, we get an idea of what could of have happened to the bird. Mrs. Peters places herself in Mrs. Wright’s shoes once again, Mrs. Peters (in a whisper): when I was little girl-my kitten- there was a boy