This is week 2 of my summer Advanced Composition class. This posting discusses a play that uses quilting as part of a woman's character. Trifles is a one act play by Susan Glaspell. The play is actually based on a true story that the writer covered when she was a journalist in Des Moines, Iowa. The storyline revolves around the murder of a woman's husband. The woman is in jail for the murder. Several people enter the farmhouse to look for evidence. They include the sheriff and his wife, a neighbor and his wife, and the county attorney. The women notice the untidy kitchen and the jars of preserves that are cracked and frozen. However, the men pass this area off as insignificant, mere trifles. The women also find unfinished quilting. While looking for sewing materials to take to the woman in jail, they find a box containing important evidence. The men have already dismissed this area of the house that is so blatantly a woman's world. Because the women are concerned about these trifles of another woman's life, they found evidence that the men never would have found. When the men return to see what the women are up to, they notice the quilt pieces but again overlook the evidence. The jailed woman's life is now in pieces just as her quilt project is in pieces that may never be put together.