The play opens with a description of Mr Hale discovering Mrs Wright in her living room, quietly pleating her apron while her husband lies dead upstairs. The couple's home is described as a "lonesome place" in which "incompleted tasks" and "dirty towels" litter the kitchen. This abandoned setting, in combination with the act of violence around which the play revolves, creates a dark, sinister tone.
The general unease and morbidity of the play are weaved together with the strong feminist ideals that Glaspell espouses through her characters. Glaspell uses Trifles sinister content to highlight the plight of women in the early 1900s, and the ways in which domestic expectations and gendered inequalities could be suffocating. Mrs Hale, the most vocal female character in the play, states early on:
“Men’s hands aren’t always as clean as they might be."
This sets an opinionated tone for the rest of the play, in which Glaspell asks the audience to consider how John and male domination more broadly are complicit in this tragedy. Throughout the play, Glaspell's voice and opinion are clearly delivered through her characters' dialogue. Although a woman is technically on trial for the murder, Glaspell draws attention to the role men played in the incident.
Glaspell focuses on the unequal judgment the men make of the couple’s house—they criticize Minnie’s “housekeeping” while failing to mention the influence Mr. Wright had on the home’s aesthetic. Glaspell further depicts the men as clueless and derogatory; they ironically overlook key evidence as women's "trifles," and they insult and make fun of the women openly. This results in the women choosing not to share the evidence they uncover with the men. Throughout the play, Glaspell uses irony and characterization to create a discursive, opinionated tone through which she explores the powerlessness experienced by women in the early 1900s and men's role in their subjugation.
