Trifles

How do you explain the play's title? In what ways does the ironic title of the play shape its meaning?

how do you explain the plays title? Trifles.

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The name of the play refers specifically to Lewis Hale's casual statement that "women are used to worrying over trifles" near the beginning of the play, when Mrs. Peters' attention is drawn to the broken jars of fruit preserves. Hale offers this statement in an indulgently superior manner, but the fallacy of his assumptions becomes clear as the women proceed to solve the case precisely by looking at the minor details. In their search for external, smoking gun evidence outside of the kitchen and living room, the men do not recognize that all the necessary information about her motives rests in the domestic area at the center of Mrs. Wright's life. Mrs. Hale says defensively that nothing is wrong with looking at little things while waiting for evidence, but in reality, she is not waiting for evidence but actively discovering it as she develops a picture of Minnie Wright's dismal home life.

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