ANALYSIS: SETTING

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Where It All Goes Down

Early 1900's America, the Kitchen of Wright Farmhouse

Turn of the 20th century, America

It's a wee bit tricky (because Glaspell doesn't give us an exact year) but we do know the play
was first performed in 1916. So we'll go ahead and assume it's set somewhere around then,
but probably a little earlier. The thing that's totally clear is that this play is set in a time in
America when women got way less respect than they do now.

Not that we don't still have room to improve, but women didn't even have the right to vote
when Trifles was first performed. Suffrage didn't come around till 1920 when, after years of
struggle, the feminist movement finally shoved the 19th Amendment through Congress.

The thing that's important to realize is that the slew of sexist comments from the menfolk in
the play represent the attitude of most men in the country. The play's ladies aren't the victims
of a few random jerks; they're the victims of a whole society of jerks who don't even realize
how jerky they are… which sort of makes them even bigger jerks.

The Wright Farmhouse

Mrs. Hale gives us the details on the Wright house here:

Mrs. Hale: I stayed away because it weren't cheerful [...]. I've never liked this place. Maybe
because it's down in a hollow and you don't see it from the road. I dunno what it is but it's a
lonesome place and always was. (101)

Yeah, that doesn't sound like anybody's dream home. We can totally see why Mrs. Wright
might've gone a little nuts in this place. It's totally isolated, because it's in a hollow (which is
like a little valley).

Mrs. Wright had zero contact with anybody except for her jerk of a husband; she couldn't
even wave at people who were cruising by on the road. It's not hard to get how Mrs. Wright
might've felt like a bird in a cage.

The Kitchen

The only part of the Wright house that we actually see on stage is the kitchen, which doesn't
sound so nice. The very first line of the stage directions tells us straight up that the kitchen is
"gloomy" (1). Ugh, that's incredibly depressing, considering that Mrs. Wright probably had to
spend most of her time in that kitchen.
On top of being generally gloomy, the kitchen is also full of signs of "incompleted work" (1).
There are dishes in the sink, a filthy dishtowel, dirty rags, and a random loaf of stale bread.
Later we also learn that one of the cabinets is full of sticky, oozing preserves because Mrs.
Wright's jam jars burst over night.

The men see the dirty, gloomy kitchen as a sign that Mrs. Wright was a bad housekeeper,
which in their mind translates to her being a bad woman in general. They're so oblivious to
the female perspective that they don't even seem to take into account the fact that Mrs. Wright
had to sort of leave things as they were when she was hauled off to jail. Kind of hard to keep
things tidy at home when you're... not there.

Probably the most important thing to think about here is that the kitchen is symbolic of
women in general. In this time period especially, the kitchen was thought of as the woman's
place. The men are so dismissive of it that they don't even bother to look for clues there,
which is pretty bizarre since they're investigating a crime committed by a woman.

The Sheriff even has this slightly hilarious line: "Nothing here but kitchen things" (26). (Oh,
classic Sheriff.) The irony of this line pokes us in the face later when it's in the kitchen that
Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters later find the clue for which the men are looking. Sorry, Sheriff.
Guess you should've paid a little more attention to "kitchen things."

MRS. HALE

Character Analysis

Woman Warrior
All hail Mrs. Hale—this protagonist of Trifles is not to be trifled with. Like most other
women in America around the turn of the 20th century, Mrs. Hale puts up with a daily
onslaught of sexism. But unlike a lot of other women, this Midwestern farmwife doesn't take
it lying down.
Mrs. Hale isn't even afraid to go up against men with authority, like Mr. Henderson, the
County Attorney. Early in the play, Mrs. Hale gets annoyed that Henderson disses Mrs.
Wright's housekeeping even though the murder suspect was grabbed suddenly from her house
and tossed into jail. Every time the Attorney tries to talk smack about Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Hale
has a comeback. Here's one of our favorite interchanges:
COUNTY ATTORNEY: [...] Dirty towels! (kicks his foot against the pans under the sink) Not
much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?
MRS HALE: (stiffly) There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: [...] I know there are some Dickson county farmhouses which do not
have such roller towels. [...]
MRS HALE: Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always as clean as they
might be.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. (33-37)
No, Mrs. Hale doesn't get all up in Henderson's face and call him a jerk. She's still a lady of
her time and has to be wee bit subtler than that—they might lock her up too if she spent all
her life being outright aggressive. But notice how every time the County Attorney tries to pin
the bad housekeeper label on Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Hale finds a way to undercut it and to put the
blame on men.

Bad Samaritan
If Mrs. Hale were nothing more than a flag-waving crusader for women's rights, she wouldn't
be nearly as complex a character as she is. The thing that makes her so interesting is her guilt
over never coming over to spend time with her neighbor Mrs. Wright. Over and over again,
she admits that she knew what a horrible husband Mr. Wright was and how lonely Mrs.
Wright must have been, but that she stayed away because the Wright house was gloomy and
depressing.
Mrs. Hale's guilty conscience erupts after she and Mrs. Peters find Mrs. Wright's dead canary,
which they're sure Mr. Wright executed. The sight of the dead bird makes it all too clear the
kind of horrible life Mrs. Hale's neighbor wife had been living. Mrs. Hale also knew Mrs.
Wright before she got married and turned into a depressing lady. Check out this set of lines,
where Mrs. Hale's guilt finally explodes:
MRS HALE: [...] I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue
ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang. [...] Oh, I wish I'd come over here once in a
while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to punish that? [...] I might have
known she needed help! (136-138)
Notice that Mrs. Hale isn't screaming that Mr. Wright should've been punished for all his
years of treating his wife like dirt. Instead, Mrs. Hale is saying that she's the one who should
be punished for ignoring another woman in need just because that woman's house was
gloom-central.

Rebel with a Cause

Usually whenever anybody talks about Trifles, the word "feminist" comes out in the same
sentence. So it seems pretty likely that Mrs. Hale's realization that she could've done more is
meant to be a message to every woman everywhere. Take this quote for instance:
MRS. HALE: [...] I know how things can be—for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs. Peters.
We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things—it's all just a
different kind of the same thing. (138)
It this isn't a rallying cry for women everywhere to band together, than we've never heard a
rallying cry. (Psst: we've heard rallying cries.) In the end, along with Mrs. Peters, Mrs. Hale
takes a stand against the male-dominated society by hiding the dead bird that could condemn
Mrs. Wright of murdering her husband. It might not be a huge act of rebellion, but it is a rebel
act. By doing this, Mrs. Hale is saying to the men, "We as women defy your laws. We're mad
as hell, and we aren't going to take it anymore.

MRS. PETERS

Character Analysis

The Good Wife

Mrs. Peters is Mrs. Hale's partner in crime, which might be kind of an unlikely role for a
sheriff's wife. Of course, when we first meet Mrs. Peters we'd never guess she'd
become Thelma to anyone's Louise. The stage directions describe Mrs. Peters as "a slight
wiry woman, [with] a thin nervous face" (1).
Doesn't sound like much of a rebel, huh? Well, for most of the play, she's the opposite of that.
Unlike Mrs. Hale, who's not afraid to give the men a little attitude, Mrs. Peters makes excuses
for the guys when they toss sexist comments the ladies' way. Here are some of our favorites
snippets:
MRS. HALE: I'd hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticising.
[...]
MRS PETERS: Of course it's no more than their duty. (51-52)
MRS. HALE: (resentfully) I don't know as there's anything so strange, our takin' up our time
with little things while we're waiting for them to get the evidence. [...] I don't see as it's
anything to laugh about.

MRS. PETERS: (apologetically) Of course they've got awful important things on their
minds. (78-79)
As things get more intense as she and Mrs. Hale solve the mystery, Mrs. Peters continually
reminds Mrs. Hale of how gruesome the murder was and that the law must be upheld. Being
the Sheriff's wife, Mrs. Peters probably feels an extra duty to make sure that "justice is
served."
The County Attorney even reminds her that she's "Married to the law" (147).

The Good-Bad Wife

By the end of play, though, Mrs. Peters takes the biggest journey of any other character when
she stands with Mrs. Hale in hiding the evidence that could convict Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Peters'
feelings of duty to the law and her husband are crushed by her feelings of empathy for the
murderess.
The Sheriff's wife can feel Mrs. Wright's rage over Mr. Wright murdering her canary because
Mrs. Peters felt the same kind of rage when a boy chopped up her kitten with a hatchet. (Uh,
horrible. We can see why.) Mrs. Peters also totally gets Mrs. Wright's feelings of loneliness
and depression. These lines say it best:
MRS. PETERS: (something within her speaking) I know what stillness is. When we
homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died—after he was two years old, and me with no
other then—[...] I know what stillness is. (133-135)
Though she's still wrestling with herself up to the very end, Mrs. Peters beats Mrs. Hale to the
punch and is the first to try and shove the bird in her pocket at the end. The box doesn't fit,
and she's too freaked out to actually touch the canary's body (gross), but it's Mrs. Peters'
trying that sparks Mrs. Hale to hide the evidence in the big pockets of her coat. She might be
wiry and nervous, but by the time Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Wright are done with her, Mrs. Peters
is a worthy partner in crime.

GEORGE HENDERSON, THE COUNTY ATTORNEY

Character Analysis
Mr. Henderson may be the antagonist of Trifles, but that doesn't mean he's a typical
mustache-twirling bad guy. He's a young, probably attractive County Attorney investigating a
gruesome murder. Sounds like he could be the lead on like every cop show ever.
As the play begins, we see him driving the action by interrogating Mr. Hale on all the details
the farmer knows about the crime. If we didn't know any better, the first few minutes of the
play would fool us into thinking Henderson is the protagonist and that we're about to watch a
story of an upright lawman solving a crime.
We suddenly realize that the County Attorney isn't as perfect as he originally seems, when we
hit this set of lines:
HALE: Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.
(The two women move a little closer together.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (with the gallantry of a young politician) And yet, for all their
worries, what would we do without the ladies? (The women do not unbend. He goes to the
sink, takes a dipperful of water from the pail and pouring it into a basin, washes his hands.
Starts to wipe them on the roller-towel, turns it for a cleaner place) Dirty towels! (Kicks his
foot against the pans under the sink.) Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies? (32-
33)
So Hale makes the sexist comment that gives us the title, saying that women only worry
about things that don't matter. Then, for a hot sec, Henderson looks like he might be the
enlightened male in the room, when he points out that men depend on women. But our
feelings of warmth for the Attorney last no time at all since he immediately gets so mad that
there are dirty towels that he kicks Mrs. Wright's pots and pans.
It becomes really clear really fast that Henderson is a typical male of his time and only sees
women as housekeepers. In his mind, any woman who fails at these things is a failure as a
human being.
As Henderson makes one condescending comment after another to Mrs. Hale and Mrs.
Peters, he steadily comes to represent misogyny as a whole. (Wouldn't his mother be proud?)
Since Henderson is also the highest-ranking lawman in the play, we can't help but think about
the fact that the law itself is misogynist. At this time, women couldn't vote, so they had
absolutely no say in the laws they were expected to live by.
So at the end of the play when our protagonist Mrs. Hale and her trusty sidekick Mrs. Peters
hide the evidence the Attorney seeks, it's all to clear that Henderson is the antagonist we're
supposed to root against. No, George Henderson isn't corrupt or conniving. As far as we can
tell, he's an honest man trying to his job. He just has the bad luck of representing the male-
dominated society that the play is out to rebel against.
So what do you think... can he still be a good guy?

LEWIS HALE, A NEIGHBORING FARMER

Character Analysis
You might think Mr. Hale is going to be a major character by the first few minutes of the
play. This guy has some serious monologues, which usually means we're going to be zeroed
in on a character for a while. Even though he's our protagonist's husband, it quickly becomes
clear that Mr. Hale is just an exposition machine.
He gives a longwinded back-story about how weird Mrs. Wright was when he found her and
how scary Mr. Wright's body was when he found it. Other than that, he doesn't do much but
follow the County Attorney and bring the horses around in the end. (Hey, somebody needs to
take care of the horses.)
Mr. Hale does get the line that gives us the title of the play: "Well, women are used to
worrying over trifles" (32). So it's pretty clear that—along with every other man in the play—
Hale represents the tidal wave of misogyny that's crushing the women of America every day.

HENRY PETERS, SHERIFF

Character Analysis
Not trying to be a bunch of haters, but the Sheriff is kind of a waste of space. Hale doesn't do
much in play either… but at least he has a story to tell. All that Mr. Peters' husband does is
follow the County Attorney around like a little puppy dog. Really, he's a pretty one-
dimensional character, whose main purpose is to show just how insensitive men's sexist
comments can be.
Here are a couple of our favorites:
SHERIFF: Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin' about her
preserves. (30)
SHERIFF: They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it! (The men laugh; the
women look abashed.) (75)
Oh, that goofy Sheriff... what's he gonna say next? Since the Sheriff is a lawman like the
County Attorney, his misogyny also points out the misogyny of a system of laws that women
aren't allowed to take part in creating. The fact that he's married to Mrs. Peters, who rebels
against this system, seems to heighten her act of rebellion. When she decides on giving
obstructing justice a try, it seems like an even bigger deal because she's a lawman's wife.
It's sort of ironic, right? In the world of the play, Mrs. Peters is seen as "Married to the law;"
she's only an extension of her husband (147). But when we analyze the play on a larger level,
we see that the Sheriff was probably only included so his wife's actions pack more of a
wallop. To readers and audience members, the only thing that gives Mr. Peters a reason to
exist is Mrs. Peters.
How's it feel now, big man?
summary
John Wright has been strangled to death with a rope in his mega-creepy Midwestern
farmhouse. The main suspect of the grizzly crime? His wife. As the County Attorney, Sheriff
Peters, and a neighboring farmer named Mr. Hale investigate the house for clues, the real
sleuths turn out to be Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. Though the menfolk constantly make fun of
the women for worrying about female things, like Mrs. Wright's unfinished quilt, it's the
ladies' attention to "woman stuff" that allows them to crack the case.
When the ladies discover Mrs. Wright's pet canary with its neck wrung, they immediately put
the mystery together. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters know that the harsh Mr. Wright snapped the
canary's neck, and that, after years of neglect and emotional abuse, Mrs. Wright repaid her
husband by giving him a taste of what her pet bird got. (And we don't mean birdseed.)
The play comes to its spine-tingling conclusion when the ladies hide the bird from the male
authorities, denying them the evidence of motive they need to convict Mrs. Wright. In the
end, we're left with lots of juicy questions about the true meaning of justice for women… and
oppressed people everywhere.