Trifles

The quilt—and the question of whether Mrs. Wright meant to quilt or knot it—is a recurring symbol and motif in the play. This is significant because the quilt exemplifies the “ladies' things” that the men are accustomed to dismissing as trifles. However, the quilt proves pivotal to the case the men are trying to solve, as it leads the women to discover the corpse of the canary. If the men had paid closer attention to this that they deemed a trifle, and to the women's conversation about it, they may have found their quarry after all. As Glaspell has written it though, the men do not. Through this motif, Glaspell therefore asserts that women, their lives, and the possessions they create as housewives, all deserve proper respect and attention—lest men fall into traps they create for themselves through their own misogynistic ignorance, while women remain unseen, unappreciated, and underestimated. Through the unfinished quilt, Glaspell enjoins the reader to pay closer attention to what lies right in front of their faces: from the rampant oppression of women, to the secrets and lives that their possessions bespeak.