Trifles opens with a passage describing the Wright's abandoned kitchen. This initial image sets the stage for the rest of the play:
The kitchen is the now abandoned farmhouse of John Wright, a gloomy kitchen, and left without having been put in order—unwashed pans under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the bread-box, a dish-towel on the table—other signs of incompleted work.
The kitchen is the setting in which much of play’s drama occurs, and this opening imagery provides key information about the house and its occupants. Without making any definitive statements about the occupants or their relationship, this imagery conveys a sense of loneliness and decay that permeates the rest of the story.
Kitchen imagery is littered throughout the play, constantly drawing the audience back to the setting in which Minnie lived out her isolated days. This imagery is built through the dialogue as well as the stage notes:
The County Attorney: (He goes to the sink, takes a dipperful of water from the pail and pouring it into a basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them on the roller-towel, turns it for a cleaner place) Dirty towels! (kicks his foot against the pans under the sink) Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?
The state of the kitchen is so dire that the men remark on it, laying the blame on the wife, Minnie Wright. The play takes place in the early 20th century, a period in which women were still largely subservient to their husbands and male counterparts. A woman's place was deemed to be in the home—and, more specifically, in the kitchen. The kitchen is the only room that receives this depth of description; this attention to detail further emphasizes the fact that the wife, Minnie, spent all her time in isolated domesticity. The kitchen imagery highlights the neglect and servitude that women faced at that time and that ultimately drove Minnie to extreme action.
