The Assumptions About Women Throughout the Play Trifles

Throughout the early 1900s women were basically seen as objects of possession and did not have very much freedom once they were married.  Once women were married “the husband has the power of life and death over his wife, at least within certain limits and under certain circumstances” (Westermarck 408).  In the circumstance of the play “Trifles”, Mr. Wright basically had power over his wife, and from what Mrs. Hale said on page 774, about it not seeming like a happy place, must mean that Mr. Wright wasn’t all that great of a husband.The women throughout this play fight these assumptions and prove that they deserve to be as equal as men in society.

The play “Trifles” takes place in the early 1900s.  Throughout the play, a murder occurs and the sheriff, County Attorney, and Mr. Hale are searching throughout Mrs. Wright’s house for clues on what happened.  The three men search throughout the entire house but still don’t find much, if any, incriminating evidence that would allow for them to put Mrs. Wright in jail for murdering her husband.  Although the men were not able to find much evidence pointing the murder towards Mrs. Wright, the two wives, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, found more than enough incriminating evidence to allow for Mrs. Wright to be put in jail.

Some of the evidence the women found were a dead bird with a broken neck in a cabinet, a poor stitch in the quilt Mrs. Wright was working on, she knotted the quilt with a very complex knot, and food left out on the kitchen counters.  Although the women found all of these small pieces of evidence, the men just threw most of it out, saying that the women were just noticing trifles that had no real importance to the crime.  Although the men disregarded some of the evidence the women found they also accepted some of it.  For instance the men took into consideration the fact that Mrs. Wright was going to knot the quilt and used that to prove she had the skill to tie the rope around Mr. Wright.

The clues that the women found throughout the house were certainly good quality clues.  Unfortunately if the men wanted to understand their meanings in the case they would have really needed to consider each item, and they were not the people to think that hard or in depth.  The fact that there was a dead bird in the cabinet gives a motive for Mrs. Wright to kill her husband.