Question

read the excerpt from part two of trifles.
mrs. hale. its log cabin pattern. pretty, isnt it? i wonder if she was goin to quilt or just knot it? (footsteps
have been heard coming down the stairs. the sheriff enters, followed by hale and the county attorney.)
sheriff. they wonder if she was going to quilt or just knot it. (the men laugh, the women look abashed.)
what is ironic about this excerpt?
the men laugh at the women, and the women find themselves feeling very embarrassed by this.
the men believe the women are incapable of discovering anything of substance when, in fact, they are the ones
who discover evidence.
although they are considered to be good, knowledgeable homemakers, the women are puzzled by which stitching
technique was used in the quilt.
although the women are in mrs. wright’s kitchen, they are unfamiliar with many of the items that they find.

Explanation:

To determine the irony, we analyze each option:

• Option 1 describes the men’s laughter and women’s embarrassment but doesn’t capture irony (just a reaction).
• Option 2: The men mock the women’s interest in the quilt (thinking it’s trivial), but the women later discover key evidence (like the bird, motive for the crime). The men underestimate the women’s ability to find “substantial” clues, but the women do—this is dramatic irony (audience/reader knows the women’s discovery, men don’t, and their dismissal is ironic).
• Option 3: The women aren’t “puzzled” about the stitching—Mrs. Hale wonders, but the irony isn’t about their homemaking knowledge.
• Option 4: The women are familiar with kitchen/homemaking items, so this is incorrect.

So the irony is the men’s underestimation vs. the women’s actual discovery.

Answer:

B. The men believe the women are incapable of discovering anything of substance when, in fact, they are the ones who discover evidence.