Minnie Glaspell Trifles Analysis

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Evidence in Glaspell’s “Trifles” Evidence is crucial to solving a murder. There are six vital questions that need to be asked in order to attain the evidence needed to accuse someone of murder: who, what, where, when, how, and why? “Trifles” begins with what is already known: Mr. Wright was strangled by a rope while sleeping in the upstairs bedroom at night. In this drama, two of those crucial questions still need to be answered: Why was Mr. Wright murdered and who completed the deed? Through Minnie Foster’s actions and the accumulating evidence, the characters reveal the personality of Mrs. Wright and the probable cause for Mr. Wright’s murder. The reader is first introduced to the murder through the eyes of Mr. Hale and his eyewitness account …show more content…
Wright they find a bird cage stashed in the cupboard (Glaspell 87). They notice the bird cage is broken: “Why look at this door. It’s broke. One hinge is pulled apart” (Glaspell 93). There is not a sign of a bird other than the broken cage. The cage is another symbol of Minnie Foster; she was broken and empty of life. With the empty, broken cage, other questions arise: Where is the bird and why is the cage broken? After the finding of the cage, Mrs. Hale begins to remember Minnie being like a bird: “she was like a bird herself- real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and- fluttery” (Glaspell 108). Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters begin to look for sewing supplies for Minnie to pass the time. As they search, they find a beautiful red box (Glaspell 110). Inside the box, they find something much more shocking than sewing supplies:
MRS. PETERS. It’s the …show more content…
Hale and Mrs. Peters, the reader can see the identity of the murderer and her likely motive. The women, in the end, are the ones who solve the murder. According to Suzy Holstein, “The men come to the scene of a crime and attempt to look through the eyes of legal investigators” (Holstein par.3). Yet the women, “begin, almost instinctively, to put themselves into Minnie Wright's place” (Holstein par.4). Because the women can place themselves in Minnie’s shoes they are able to solve the murder. Minnie strangled her husband, John, at night with a rope because he strangled her bird. The bird was her escape from the isolation she felt and when the bird was gone so was
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