Trifles

The definition of Trifles is something of little  importance or value. The play "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell is all about the details of this murder mystery that lead to solving the murder. The women roles are understated in the play while the men are the ones attempting to solve this crime. The women are assumed to take the role of the house keeper and care taker of the household, while the men are the brains behind the hard labor that get the job done. However, it is not the men who solve the murder mystery it is the women. Men often over look details and see the big picture. Women pay attention to the small details. As a woman, I am the first person to notice if something has moved or is missing in my house, that I did not move. Something that was not there before you left but is there now, I notice. It is the little subtleties like this that women naturally pick up on. These subtleties are what led Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale to solve the murder and what was the motivation behind it. The men mocked the woman for reading too much into Mrs. Wright's sewing. "They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it." 
The first trifle that leads the women to believe something occurred to upset Mrs. Wright was her sewing. "Mrs. Peters, look at this one. Here, it has been so nice and even. And look at this! It's all over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn't know what she was about! " They noticed her sewing was neat and in sewn perfectly until right before she stopped on the quilt. The last few stitches were not sewn neatly and stood out from the rest of the stitches.
The second trifle that the women pick up on is the bird cage that is missing a bird. " No, she didn't have a cat. She's got the feeling some people have about cats-being afraid of them."  Why would Mrs. Wright's bird cage be missing a bird if she did not own a cat? It wouldn't unless someone killed it.  Most of us have a pet that we love very dearly. If someone hurts or worse yet kills a loved one, you become volatile to your own dangerous actions.  In a distraught over her lost bird, Minnie Wright clearly lost control of herself and killed her husband. 
Even though the women had solved the murder, they did not tell the Sheriff or their husbands because they emphasized with Minnie. " When I was a girl, my kitten...there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes....and before I could get there....If they hadn't held me back I would have hurt him. "  The men never find out the motivation behind the murder or who the real murderer is. All the little trifles that the men thought were foolish and silly were the clues that led to solving the crime. The moral of the story, don't overlook the trifles because they are what make the big picture.