What is the overall irony in the play Trifles?

Irony is rampant in the play Trifles. The title itself is ironic, as there are absolutely no trifles to the situation that unveils in the play. As a literary device, irony moves the plot forward by serving as a contrasting way to illuminate the obvious facts that are evident everywhere in the scenery. At the same time, irony helps cover those very facts from the prying eyes of those who could use the evidence to further damage the accusation against Minnie Wright.

Irony 1: COUNTY ATTORNEY: "Well, women are used to worrying over trifles."

When John Wright is found murdered, his wife enters in a state of deep shock. This is because, since she snaps and kills him after years of abuse, her internal mental processes render her unable to process what has really happened.

Hence, she still finds a compartment in her mind to ask for the everyday things that she usually works with, namely, her fruit compotes, and the other many things she is responsible for.

Right before she goes into custody, she asks about these things. The county attorney dubbed these worries as "trifles", and did not care much about them. What the county attorney does not realize, and neither do any of the men, is that these "trifles", such as the messed up kitchen, the dirty towels and the broken compotes, are not indicative of Minnie's bad housekeeping habits. On the contrary, they are clear signs of a chaotic and ongoing abusive relationship in the household that prevents Minnie from carrying on with things normally.

This collective information is the quintessential smoking gun that the men, thinking that women only worry about trivial things, do not understand. Those trivial things: the compote, the kitchen, and everything else which is in a state of disarray, happens to be the very circumstantial evidence the men are looking for.

Irony 2: The unfinished stitching, the broken canary cage, the canary's dead body stuffed in the drawers are at plain sight, and yet, none of the men can find anything.

Again, all the cues that the men need to put the case together are right in front of their eyes. Since they have decided that these things are not important--because they are "women's things"-- they do not even bother looking at what is right in front of their eyes.

Irony 3: It is the women who discover everything, and they are merely bystanders in the whole affair.

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are neither police officers, nor detectives. They are not even farm hands! And yet, they were able to put together the entire case for Minnie Wright, from start to finish, by simply using their female intuition and their common sense.