Analyzing Literary Elements

In Trifles, two plots run parallel: the men have an off-stage story as they hunt for clues

to the murder of Mr. Wright; the women have an on-stage story as they unravel the

life of Mrs. Wright. The tension in the story’s plot has to do with the rate at which

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters come to understand what has happened. Suspense builds

as the two women, and the audience, figure out who killed Mr. Wright and why. The

suspense is heightened by the moral dilemma of whether the women should conceal

incriminating evidence — and whether they’ll get caught doing it. Of course, one

reason the men in the story don’t figure out what happened is that they dismiss the

things the women say as mere trifles.

Trifles has two female characters — Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters — and three male

characters — Mr. Hale, the sheriff, and the county attorney. Mr. and Mrs. Wright, though

not on stage, have a presence as well. Over the course of the play, Mrs. Hale and Mrs.

Peters change, feeling less certain about their own beliefs, disappointed in themselves for not being better friends to Mrs. Wright, and empathetic to her desperate loneliness.

The men don’t change. We learn about all of the characters through their conversation,

especially in the way the conversation changes when the men are involved.

The setting of Trifles helps us understand character and also moves the plot along.

The play takes place in an empty farmhouse, but the setting is more complicated than

that. The men go to the bedroom where the murder occurred, while the women focus

on the kitchen. Both the men and the women note the disheveled condition in which

Mrs. Wright left it, yet the women are protective of her as well, understanding that she

probably wouldn’t have left such a mess if she hadn’t been unexpectedly taken from

her home. They also come to understand that the mess (which is a part of the setting)

may be a sign of the “sudden feeling” the sheriff and attorney are looking for. We learn

that the community is close and that Mrs. Peters is a newcomer. Mrs. Hale has known

the woman under suspicion for many years, and it is through that familiarity that she

understands what has happened and makes the decision she does.

Certain symbols are repeated in Trifles. The cold is brutal and unrelenting. The

characters move toward the stove whenever possible, and the cold is a repeated subject

of conversation. Mr. Wright is depicted as being cold and unloving, making the

cold a clear symbol of a life without affection or even company. Other symbols might

be Mrs. Wright’s quilt pieces, the choice between quilting and knotting, the dead bird

and the broken birdcage, the preserves (or trifles), and even the half-done chores.

Each of these things is more fraught with meaning than it at first seems.

So, although the subject of Trifles is the unraveling of a mystery and the decision

to protect the murderer, some of its themes might be:

• Sexism can make people blind to the truth.

• People may take desperate measures when they feel entrapped in a loveless

marriage, in a cold isolated house, or in a society that doesn’t value them.

• Someone who is a criminal by one set of social standards might be a victim

according to another set of social standards. Or, in other words, justice is not

always the same as the rule of law.

x