A Jury of Her Peers

“She had met Mrs. Peters the year before at the country fair, and the thing she remembered about her was that she didn’t seem like a sheriff’s wife. She was small and thin and didn’t have a strong voice.”

Mrs. Hale believes that Mrs. Peters is timid and compliant because of her appearance. At this point, she doesn’t believe that Mrs. Peters has much to offer the situation; that she has no inner strength.

“But if Mrs. Peters didn’t look like a sheriff’s wife, Peters made it up in looking like a sheriff. He was to a dot the kind of man who could get himself elected sheriff—a heavy man with a big voice, who was particularly genial with the law-abiding, as if to make it plain that he knew the difference between criminals and non-criminals.” 

Mrs. Hale’s observations in the buggy on the way to the Wright house continue with the sheriff. Glaspell quickly establishes the notion that appearances are important in this story, but they may or may not prove to be true.

“And right there it came into Mrs. Hale’s mind, with a stab, that this man who was so pleasant and lively with all of them was going to the Wrights’ now as a sheriff.”

Along with Sheriff Peters’ grin, his lively, even jovial disposition seems jarring and out of place considering the gravity of the trip before them. In this way, Glaspell plants doubt as to the sheriff’s abilities right from the beginning. The sheriff also tends to judge people by their appearances—believing he can look at the townspeople and know who is law-abiding and who is not. There is a troubling disconnect between the sheriff’s social behavior and the seriousness of the criminal investigation in front of him. This quotation also displays Mrs. Hale’s keen powers of observation.

“It looked very lonesome this cold March morning. It had always been a lonesome-looking place. It was down in a hollow, and the poplar trees around it were lonesome-looking trees.” 

The description of the Wrights’ farmhouse foreshadows the isolation the two women find within. The men, busy talking about the case, appear not to notice anything about the location of the farm. The women both feel the lonesome atmosphere of the place, while the men ignore it.

“Even after she had her foot on the door-step, her hand on the knob, Martha Hale had a moment of feeling she couldn’t cross the threshold. And the reason it seemed she couldn’t cross it now was simply because she hadn’t crossed it before. Time and time again it had been in her mind, ‘I ought to go over and see Minnie Foster’—she still thought of her as Minnie Foster, though for twenty years she had been Mrs. Wright.” 

Mrs. Hale enters the Wright house for the first time, realizing that though she knew Minnie Foster as a girl, she has not visited her in twenty years. It’s only now that a tragedy has occurred that she is here. This quotation reveals Mrs. Hale’s sensitivity and capacity for self-reflection.

“‘But I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it before his wife, and said all the women-folks like the telephones, and that in this lonesome stretch of road it would be a good thing—well, I said to Harry that that was what I was going to say—though I said at the same time that I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John—’” 

Mr. Hale reveals some facts about John Wright’s character: he was a quiet, unsociable man, who didn’t want to socialize much and who didn’t care about what his wife wanted. At the same time, Mr. Hale reveals that he does care what his own wife wants, and that he is a sociable, kind man.

“Now there he was!—saying things he didn’t need to say. Mrs. Hale tried to catch her husband’s eye, but fortunately the county attorney interrupted…” 

Mrs. Hale already feels protective toward Minnie Foster Wright, and she doesn’t want her husband’s statement to make things worse for her.

“It came into Mrs. Hale’s mind that that rocker didn’t look in the least like Minnie Foster—the Minnie Foster of twenty years before. It was a dingy red, with wooden rungs up the back, and the middle run was gone, and the chair sagged to one side.” 

Mrs. Hale is already noticing details about the kitchen that strike her as odd. She compares the kitchen’s appearance and the objects in it to the personality of the woman she knew as a girl, and they do not match. Something appears to be wrong with what she sees from the moment she arrives.

“Mrs. Hale did not like the sight of that pencil. She kept her eye fixed on her husband, as if to keep him from saying unnecessary things that would go into that note-book and make trouble.” 

Mrs. Hale doesn’t like the fact that her husband’s statement is being recorded by the sheriff. She is wary, on Minnie Foster Wright’s behalf, and worries that her husband not make Minnie’s situation more difficult. At this point, the solidarity Mrs. Hale feels with Minnie Foster begins to take shape.

“And so I said: ‘I want to see John.’

And then she—laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh.

I thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said, a little sharp, ‘Can I see John?’ ‘No,’ says she—kind of dull like. ‘Ain’t he home?’ says I. Then she looked at me. ‘Yes,’ says she, ‘he’s home.’ ‘Then why can’t I see him?’ I asked her, out of patience with her now. ‘Cause he’s dead.’ says she, just as quiet and dull—and fell to pleatin’ her apron. ‘Dead?’ says I, like you do when you can’t take in what you’ve heard.” 

Mr. Hale recounts Minnie Foster Wright’s behavior on the morning of the murder for the county attorney and the sheriff. Minnie seems subdued, almost in shock as she sits in the crocked rocker.

“‘You’re convinced that there was nothing important here?’ he asked the sheriff. ‘Nothing that would—point to any motive?’

The sheriff too looked all around, as if to re-convince himself.

‘Nothing here but kitchen things,’ he said, with a little laugh for the insignificance of kitchen things.”

Here the omniscient narrator comments on Sheriff Peters’ judgment that the kitchen, traditionally the domain of women, holds no important clues for his investigation.

“‘Oh, well,’ said Mrs. Hale’s husband, with good-natured superiority, ‘women are used to worrying over trifles.’

The two women moved a little closer together.” 

Again, the omniscient narrator reports Mr. Hale’s assumption that women commonly concern themselves with petty issues, leaving the significant matters to the men. Through the men’s statements and the usually silent, but significant, responses of the women, Glaspell’s narrator continues to illustrate the unconscious sexism that women must navigate on a daily basis, even within their most intimate relationships. Significantly, this sexism proves to be a unifying force for the women in the story.

“Mr. Hale rubbed his face after the fashion of a show man getting ready for a pleasantry.

‘But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?’ he said; and, having delivered himself of this, he followed the others through the stair door.” 

Mr. Hale makes a joke at the two women’s expense, apparently to entertain the other men, without a thought for the fact that he is insulting the women, or how his wife might feel about what he says.

“‘Wright was close!’ she exclaimed, holding up a shabby black skirt that bore the marks of much making over. ‘I think maybe that’s why she kept so much to herself. I s’pose she felt she couldn’t do her part; and then, you don’t enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively—when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls, singing in the choir.’” 

The clues about what Minnie Wright’s life is like begin adding up. Minnie Wright’s pitiful wardrobe adds pathos to the woeful state of the kitchen and the broken-down rocking chair. The house is cold, dark and shabby; Mrs. Wright’s clothes are similarly shabby and worn. Unlike her youth, there is nothing pretty or lively in Mrs. Wright’s present life.

“‘Yes—good,’ conceded John Wright’s neighbor grimly. ‘He didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him—’ She stopped, shivered a little. ‘Like a raw wind that gets to the bone.’”

Mrs. Hale reveals what she knows about John Wright’s character. Though judged a good man by society’s standards, he falls short in Mrs. Hale’s estimation. Uncaring, hard, demanding, and cold, Mrs. Hale realizes he would be difficult to live with over time.

“‘She—come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself. Real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery. How—she—did—change.’” 

Here, Mrs. Hale makes explicit the connection between Minnie Foster Wright and the bird. Minnie Foster Wright was a gentle, mild person who endured 20 years of harsh treatment by her husband. From a life of singing and pretty clothes, she went to one of shabby clothes and no singing—no joy. She is a songbird strangled by the cruelty of her husband, just as surely as her beloved pet canary was.  

“And then again the eyes of the two women met—this time club together in a look of dawning comprehension, of growing horror.” 

Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale discover the body of a dead bird whose neck has been deliberately wrung, after finding a bird cage with a door that has been wrenched open. They realize that Minnie Wright killed her husband. They have discovered the elusive motive for which the men are searching.

“’Well, ladies,’ said the county attorney, as one turning from serious things to little pleasantries, ‘have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?’

‘We think,’ began the sheriff’s wife in a flurried voice, ‘that she was going to—knot it.’” 

This brief, but significant exchange illuminates two important themes. First, the county attorney exposes his preoccupation with searching for evidence and his derogatory belief that the women couldn’t possibly find a clue to help the investigation. These ideas relate to the text’s concern with sexism. Secondly, the timid sheriff’s wife actually, bravely, reveals the truth to the county attorney; through the analogy of knotting the quilt, Mrs. Peters reveals that Mrs. Wright knotted something, and that thing was the rope around her husband’s neck. This part of the exchange confirms to the reader that the women have solved the murder. The women’s way of seeing—paying attention to the details in front of them and their superior understanding of the nuances of daily life—allows them to discern what the men miss.

“‘When I was a girl,’ said Mrs. Peters, under her breath, ‘my kitten—there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes—before I could get there—’ She covered her face an instant. ‘If they hadn’t held me back I would have’—she caught herself, looked upstairs where footsteps were heard, and finished weakly—‘hurt him.’” 

Mrs. Peters understands the emotion that a person feels when a cherished pet is killed. The emotional shock and anger overwhelmed her and she relates to the shock and anger that Mrs. Wright must have felt.

“‘No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird,’ she said after that—‘a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too.’” 

Mrs. Hale once again draws the symbolic comparison between Minnie Foster, a former choirgirl, and the tiny songbird. Not only was the bird a creature of joy in itself, it also symbolizes Mrs. Wright. Mr. Wright’s brutality killed the songbird in Minnie Foster long before he killed her canary.

“’I know what stillness is,’ repeated Mrs. Peters, in just that same way. Then she too pulled back. ‘The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale,’ she said in her tight little way.”

Mrs. Peters can relate to the picture that Mrs. Hale is painting of Minnie Wright’s silent, lonely, bare existence. However, she pulls herself back into her public role of sheriff’s wife, unable to maintain her compassion for Minnie at this point.

“The picture of that girl, the fact that she had lived neighbor to that girl for twenty years, and had let her die for lack of life, was suddenly more than she could bear.

‘Oh, I wish I’d come over here once in a while!” she cried. “That was a crime! That was a crime! Who’s going to punish that?’”

Mrs. Hale feels responsible for what happened to Minnie Wright, including the horrifying transformation that made her into a killer. The omniscient narrator reports Mrs. Hale’s feelings to the reader, heightening this dramatic realization.

“’I might ‘a’ known she needed help! I tell you, it’s queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together, and we live far apart. We all go through the same things—it’s all just a different kind of the same thing!’” 

Mrs. Hale continues to acknowledge the connectedness of all human beings and their responsibility to help one another, particularly their neighbors. Mrs. Hale is the only character to see this interconnectedness and to feel that she has let Minnie Wright down.