Mrs. Wright In Susan Glaspell's Trifles

Mrs. Wright is the main character in Susan Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles. While Mrs. Wright is being held by the police for her husband’s murder, a few men go to investigate her home, and a few women go along to gather some of her things to bring to her in jail. As the ladies collect Mrs. Wright’s possessions, they begin to come across trifles. The trifles include: a messy kitchen, a poorly sewn quilt, and a broken bird cage with a missing bird. The women view these items as important clues, and withhold their findings from the men so that they could help Mrs. Wright out of her troubles. As soon as the group enters Mrs. Wright’s home, they notice the first, off-putting clue; the kitchen is a disaster. At the sight of the kitchen,

Wright was in the process of stitching. They noticed the beauty of the quilt and how neat the stitching was… up to a certain point. The last piece that had been added to the quilt was poorly stitched. Mrs. Hale points to the bad stitching and says to Mrs. Peters, “Why, it looks as if she didn’t know what she was about,” and continues to tell how she believes Mrs. Wright did the piece while nervous about something (1085). Mrs. Peters then tries to fix the stitching so that no one else notices. Her reasoning, that “bad sewing always made me fidgety” (1085). The women begin to suspect that Mrs. Wright killed her husband, and keep finding clues that support their

While trying to find a piece of paper and some string, Mrs. Peters stumbles upon a bird cage. As she examines the cage further, she notices that the door is broken and the bird is missing. She assumes that the cat had gotten the bird. The women are offering up conversation about the birdcage when Mrs. Hale interjects, “Looks as if someone must have been rough with it” (1086). The women gather Mrs. Wright’s quilt to work on while incarcerated when they find something that frightens them. They find the bird, and its neck is broken. Mrs. Peters, obviously startled, says “Somebody – wrung – its – neck” (1087). The women are unsure what to do with the bird, but know they need to hide it from the men. This clue is more important than the others; it shows Mrs. Wright's breaking point. The scene begins to unfolds in their minds. Mr. Wright yanking open the cage door, taking out the bird, and breaking its fragile neck was enough to make Mrs. Wright lash out, and in a heat of passion, kill her husband.
As the trifles collect, the women worry that the men will see their findings, and have what they need to prove Mrs. Wright guilty. Though the men believe her to be the murderer, the women are trying their best to hide the evidence that will prove it. The mess of a kitchen, the poorly sewn quilt, and the dead bird make a solid case to convict Mrs. Wright for her husband's death, but the men are oblivious