A Jury of Her Peers

"A Jury of Her Peers"

By: Susan Glaspell

"A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell is a short story that takes place in the nineteenth century. Back then the women worked at their farmhouses. They did not have jobs that women have today. Women were barely educated and looked upon as being the weaker sex. In the story "A Jury of Her Peers", the women being a weaker sex are proven to be wrong.

Susan Galspell was born in Davenport, Iowa, in 1876 ("About the Author--Susan Galspell") Susan was a playwright, novelist, and a short story writer. She worked as a reporter for a Des Moines paper, where she covered the murder of John Hassock (Womens History Month-Susan Galspell)

This story starts out on a very cold windy day. Lewis Hale rushes his wife Martha out the door. They leave with the county attorney, Sheriff Peters, and his wife Mrs. Peters. They all are on their way to the Wright's house to investigate a crime scene, the murder of John Wright. Mr. Wright apparently had been hung during his sleep. Mrs. Wright is held as a primary suspect of her husband's death. As they enter the house, they find the kitchen in a mess. After the county attorney asks Mr. Hale what he saw the day before, all the men head upstairs to investigate. They leave the women downstairs to gather a few things to take back to Mrs. Wright. The two women discover a quilt that Mrs. Wright had been working on and decided to take back to her. Mrs. Hale gathered the quilt pieces and in the meantime Mrs. Peters spots a broken bird cage. The women had a discussion about Mrs. Wright once having a bird and how it was her companionship, being that she didn't have any children. While Mrs. Hale was gathering up the quilt pieces, she finds a lovely box in the sewing basket. They opened the beautiful box just to find a dead bird. The bird's neck looked like it had been wrung. "She was going to bury it in that pretty box," said Mrs. Hale (A Jury of Her Peers par. 2, 631). Finding the bird in the box means that Mrs. Wright liked the bird. It also made Mrs. Hale link the bird's death with Mr. Wright's death. The men never found a motive. However, the women found the motive and never told the men.

The point of view in this story is from Mrs. Hale's perspective. Mrs. Hale is a neighbor and a friend to all the characters. Mrs. Hales and the rest of them are there to find a motive for the murder. They feel that if they find a motive that they can convict Mrs. Wright with the death of her husband.

The characters in A Jury of Her Peers consist of Mrs. Wright, John Wright, George Henderson, Henry Peters, Mrs. Peters, Lewis Hale, and Martha Hale. Mrs. Wright was born Minnie Foster who loved to sing and was a happy person until she married John Wright. John Wright was known as a good man but he was a hard man that neglected