"Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" by Adrienne Rich tells of the repressed Aunt Jennifer who produces scenes representing freedom and fearlessness, but in reality is trapped and powerless. Only through her artistic expression is she able to find a temporary release from her entrapment. In "Trifles", Minnie Wright allows herself to be subjugated for thirty years before she frees her whole self, through drastic means that leads to a more permanent solution, murdering her husband. From a feminist perspective, these two works give very different examples of how a woman is the cast as the "nonsignificant other" (Bressler 144), but discovers a way out of her continual oppression by rejecting their insignificance.

Rich begins her poem by describing the tigers of Aunt Jennifer's tapestry. They are vibrant and powerful with no fear of men. One begins to feel that Aunt Jennifer, as the artist, must be a free spirit because she...