The dead bird is a significant piece of evidence in Trifles as it tells us how and why Mrs. Wright snapped and killed her husband. Mr. Wright broke the birds neck with a rope, and in response his wife flipped and killed him in the exact same way. The bird is clear evidence of Mrs. Wrights motive in killing her husband, which is why Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale hide it before anyone can see it.
The bird is important because it provides a possible motive for the murder of Mr. Wright. When the women find the bird, with its neck broken, wrapped in a piece of silk in the sewing box, they immediately intuit what has happened. As a girl, Mrs. Wright was lively, and a good singer; thirty years of marriage to her taciturn husband has left her a shell of her former self. The bird, also a good singer, must have been a way for Mrs. Wright to cope with the endless work of farm life. The women surmise that Mr. Wright in a fit of impatience or vindictiveness killed the bird, and that his wife killed him in a fit of retaliation.
In a larger sense, the bird is important because it symbolizes how the emotional lives of women are unknown (and potentially unknowable) to the men. When the women come to crime scene, they immediately are able to understand the significance of small details in the room, which have significance to them because of their shared background as farm women. The importance of the broken jars of preserves is significant to them because they know how much work went into making them; no woman would be careless enough to let them freeze and burst unless something extraordinary had happened. The women decide to hide the bird from the men out of solidarity with Mrs. Wright; as one of them says, the real crime was not the murder, but that the women did not do a better job of taking care of each other.
The Dead Bird Quotes in TriflesThe Trifles quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Dead Bird. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
“It was a boy who took a hatchet when I was a girl, my kitten. Before I could reach him—[She covers her face]—I would have hurt him if they hadn’t held me back. [Catches herself, looks upstairs where footsteps are heard, falters weakly] ”.
Cite this page as follows:
Cordell, Octavia. eNotes Editorial, “Why is the dead bird significant evidence in Trifles?” 24 May 2020, https://www enotes. com/topics/trifles/questions/why-is-the-dead-bird-a-significant-piece-of-316745.
The dead bird, which had a rope around its neck, is an important piece of evidence that helps explain what transpired in the Wright home. It’s evident that the bird was violently strangled to death by Mr. after being abruptly taken from its cage. Wright. His wife genuinely loved the little bird, whose lifeless, broken body she tenderly wraps in a silk handkerchief, so he was the only one who could have been accountable for this deed.
Having established what happened to the bird, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are now in a position to determine how Mr. Wright met his end. Angry and upset at the death of her bird, Mrs. Wright lost her mind and, in a fit of wrath, sentenced her husband to suffer the same fate that he had previously inflicted upon the poor bird.
The birds dead body provides firm evidence of Mrs. Wrights motives in killing her husband. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale recognize this right away, so when they hear people approaching, they conceal the dead bird. Theyre sympathetic to Mrs. Wright and do not wish for her to face severe consequences for her actions.
In the absence of this vital piece of evidence, the authorities’ ability to prosecute Mrs. Wright. Contrary to what Mrs. Despite what Wright’s male neighbors might think, the dead bird is far more than just a trinket.
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