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Glaspell develops the theme of the “trifles” of women’s lives by imbuing small things with symbolic meaning. In particular, she uses quilting and the songbird to convey what Minnie’s life has been like.
At the time the story is set, quilting was a necessary task. The laborious handiwork allowed women to make something useful and beautiful. Minnie’s quilt-in-progress reveals something of its maker. In a lightly ironic touch, she chooses a log-cabin pattern, capturing a cozy home in fabric though her own home is cold and shabby. The women remark on the “pretty” pattern and precise stitching, which speak to Minnie’s appreciation of beautiful things. It is also evidence of her competent housekeeping, in contrast to John’s careless maintenance of their home. The piece on which the stitching goes awry signals some interruption to Minnie’s state of mind.
The care with which Minnie quilts is connected to her love of beauty, as is the songbird she buys to keep her company. Mrs. Peters recalls how young Minnie loved to sing and how prettily she dressed. She describes Minnie as like a bird, “kind of timid—and fluttery.” When she sees that someone was “rough” with the birdcage, the subtle suggestion is that John was “rough” with his wife. Less subtle is Mrs. Hale’s declaration that John would have disliked a songbird that reminded him of how Minnie once sang: “He killed that too.” Years of marriage to this cold man strangled the joy out of Minnie.
Because these symbols resonate with the women, they solve the crime and exonerate the criminal. When Mrs. Hale says, in the story’s final line, that Minnie planned to “knot” the quilt (to tie the pieces together), the men do not grasp that she refers not to a quilting technique but to Minnie’s decision to end John’s abuse by strangling him in his sleep.
