Trifles
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The play Trifles is about choosing sides when it comes to ones gender. From the very beginning of the play, one realizes that its one sex against the other. It was the women sticking together, and the men doing their thing on the other side. The issue was brought up several times, in several occasions. As the setting was in a kitchen, it was automatically assumed that it must be the womens domain and the men seemed like strangers looking around. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale on the other hand, knew what to look for. One of the men made a comment on the state and cleanliness of the kitchen, referring to Mrs. Wright as “not much of a housekeeper”. Mrs. Hale immediately defended her by saying that there is a lot of work to be done on a farm; the emotions could be felt at this point as things start to unravel. “Ah, loyal to your sex I see” were the county attorneys words to her stiff reply.
Throughout this piece of literature, the reader is subjected to the many jabs at women that the men make. It was a constant barrage of criticism, mainly having to do with the little things, or trifles, that women worry about. Little did they know, that those trifles, are the things that both lead to and uncover what really occurred at the night of the murder. It was obvious that Mrs. Wright was an unhappy woman; she was living like a caged bird. The trifles she worried about represent those little incidences with her husband that built up time after time. They are the arguments, the criticisms, the emotional neglect, and the constant loneliness. It became too much to handle after a long period of unhappiness that she could not handle it anymore. I believe that there was a final thing that caused her to just break emotionally and murder her husband. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters understood this.
As for choosing sides, it could be seen that both Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters could empathize with Mrs. Wright. They believed that it must have been