TRIFLES

"He died of a rope around his neck."

 

Trifles revolutionized the way women are viewed. John Wright is killed in his bed, and upon further questioning, his wife, Minnie Wright, confesses she lay next to him while a rope somehow wrapped around his neck. Minnie Wright, formerly Minnie Foster, died years before John Wright did. Minnie was trapped in a desolate situation, and her instincts became almost primal. She knew she had to survive—and she knew where that left John. I am going to look at the implications behind John Wright’s death, and why Minnie Wright may be responsible for his death, but not guilty of murder.

 

The men in the story discredit Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters whenever the opportunity presents itself. They do not believe the women are capable of being any help to the investigation, and write them off as worrying over trifles. It is the women, however, who realize what has actually happened in the household, and it is the women who ultimately hide the motive from their husbands. As the men enter the house, Mr. Henderson’s stage direction reads as one turning from serious things to little pleasantries as he asks the women, “Well, ladies, have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?” (Glaspell 8). Mrs. Peters proclaims they have decided she was going to knot the quilt, but the knot is symbolic of the women recognizing how they are working together. Beverly A. Smith writes, "The bond among women is the essential knot" (Smith 179). Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale realize that John Wright was likely physically and verbally abusive, and that his actions caused Minnie Foster to atrophy into what became Minnie Wright– which was but a mere shell of herself.