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Similes
Situational Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Evidence in the Trifles:
In an example of situational irony, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are the ones who discover evidence relating to Mrs. Wright’s murder of her husband, not the law enforcement professionals or the one who found the dead man's body. While the three men in the story (the county attorney, sheriff, and Mr. Hale) all believe that they are the ones who will crack the case—and actively mock Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters for looking for clues—they are the ones who come up empty-handed.
Meanwhile, the two women find evidence in Mrs. Wright’s quilt that she was anxious and preoccupied about something (as her sewing went astray) and also discover the dead bird hidden in a box, pointing to the fact that Mrs. Wright possibly strangled her husband as a reaction to the fact that he strangled her bird (and, it is implied, was likely violent toward Mrs. Wright as well).
The dramatic irony emerges at the end of the story, when the two women—and readers—are aware of the evidence they found, while the men continue to belittle them for their lack of skill. The dramatic irony increases as the women decide to hide what they found from the men in order to protect Mrs. Wright, while the men continue to believe that the women haven’t “picked out” any “dangerous things.” Here Glaspell is pointing out how oblivious men can be to women’s importance and how the women in the story intentionally use that to their advantage to protect one of their own.
Related Themes:
