Irony is an extremely powerful tool used by writers to persuade a person into feeling a certain type of way. Journalist, novelist, actress, and playwright, Susan Glaspell, makes full use of irony in her play, Trifles, where ignorant men try to solve a murder and leave their wives in the kitchen where they solve it themselves. The title itself is ironic as the men dismiss objects and observations, which become revealed as key pieces of evidence, made by the women because they find it to irrelevant or “trifling”, as the objects mainly pertain to stereotypically feminine subjects. Susan Glaspell’s title of Trifles is ironic because of the dismissal of important “trifles” such as the unfinished quilt, and the broken bird cage along with the dead canary. The quilt at first seems like a regular quilt by both parties. The difference is that the men continue to joke about the quilt as quilting comes across as just a simple woman’s activity to them while the women look further inspect the quilt, and relate back to the suspect, Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale notice the quilt has terrible stitching compared to Mrs. Wright’s previous works which were done flawlessly and they begin to discuss this strange occurrence: MRS. HALE. What do you suppose she was so nervous about?
MRS. PETERS. Oh—I don’t know. I don’t know
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Even if the women themselves do not realize it yet, they have uncovered the first piece of evidence against Mrs. Wright. This pair knows the blood and sweat that went behind quilting and they knew the difference in the stitching. This discussion of the quilt shows how even if the women are not specifically looking for evidence, they are still more perceptive and observant than the men who are searching every inch of the upstairs room where the death took