At the beginning of the twentieth century people's lifestyles were far different from the lives we live today. The early 1900's was a time of hardship and struggles. This is especially true for the people of rural America. Both men and women must work long hours everyday just to put food on the table, a thing we might take for-granted today. While the men tended to the fields and livestock, the women raised the children, cooked meals, and often made the families clothing. Although both men and women worked as equally hard at their respected duties, women were still often being viewed as the inferior sex, both physically and mentally. This is prevalent throughout Susan Glaspell's play, "Trifles." .
This play centers around a murder in a small rural community. The two main characters, Mrs. Peterson and Mrs. Hale, are housewives who are both have different ties to the murder investigation. Mr. and Mrs. Hale are both neighbors of the Wrights. Mr. Hale is the one who reports Mr. Wright's murder. Mrs. Peterson is the wife of the local sheriff. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peterson tag along with their husband's to gather some of Mrs. Wright's , the woman who is accused of murdering her husband, belongings while their husbands investigate the house and try to find any insight into what might of been the motive behind this appalling crime. While the sheriff and the district attorney are upstairs looking for evidence of forced entry, the women are going through some of Mrs. Wright's personal items downstairs. The men can't understand why the Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peterson are worrying about the smallest of things such as the sloppy sewing on the quilt and the finding of Mrs. Wright's dead parakeet. Throughout the play, the men continually talk down to the women and act as if they are of lower intelligence than themselves. This is ironic because while the men are apparently getting nowhere in their investigation, the women are blindly stumbling into the very clues that could be considered the motive of the murder.
