Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” is a short story written in 1917 that revolves around the murder of a farmer, John Wright. Minnie Wright, John’s wife, is arrested on suspicion of murdering her husband and awaits trial. Sheriff Peters and Lewis Hale, accompanied by their wives, and George Henderson, a country attorney, travel to the crime scene, the isolated house. The women join their husbands to collect some of Minnie’s personal items. Initially, Mrs. Hale feels sympathy for Minnie and she expresses her disapproval of how the men are “snoopin’ round and criticizin’” her kitchen (200). On the other hand, Mrs. Peters says that the male investigators are doing “no more than their duty” (201), showing her respect for the law. However, Mrs. Peters eventually joins Mrs. Hale in lying to their husbands and hiding key evidence that could convict Mrs. Wright in her husband’s murder. How does Mrs. Peters change so dramatically over the course of the story?
It can be assumed that Mrs. Peters is recruited by Mrs. Hale as a fellow ‘juror’ in the case. Somehow, Mrs. Hale manages to move Mrs. Peters away from her respect for her husband’s position, making her identify with the Minnie Wright (Mustazza 494). However, Mrs. Peters seems to follow her intuition as well. After she observes Minnie’s kitchen, it leads her to believe that Mr. Wright was an abusive husband and that Minnie was leading a cruel and lonesome life. As a result, Mrs. Peters begins identifying with Minnie and Mrs. Hale, and as the men criticize the lives of women, this strengthens her identification with the two women. While investigating in the kitchen, Mrs. Peters looks at the stove, then the sink, and then the pail of water and her eyes have a “look of seeing into things, of seeing through a thing to something else” (203).
This is proof that Mrs. Peters reaches her own understanding of things she sees. Somehow, looking at these things in the kitchen reminds her of her own life, and she is able to glimpse into Minnie Wright’s life. Not only Mrs. Peters but the readers of that time would also understand the meaning behind these details. Details such as these evoke images of the dull, hard and menial work that farm women like Mrs. Wright had to do at that time, and like Mrs. Peters, readers in 1917 would recognize this. To women of that time, the things that Mrs. Peters sees would have had some sort of significance. For instance, Mrs. Peters also sees a dirty towel on a roller, and women of that time dreaded doing laundry. Those objects evoke an image of the considerable amount of time Minnie would have to spend to clean that dirty towel (Hedges 56).
While investigating, Mrs. Peters comes across clues that suggest Minnie had the motive to murder her husband. She finds a basket containing pieces of quilt and notices that some of the stitches in one of the rows appear to have been sewn haphazardly all of a sudden. Mrs. Peters reaches to the conclusion that something made Minnie nervous. Later on, she comes across an empty birdcage, which is another clue that points to Minnie’s motive of murder. She notices that the door and hinge of the cage are broken, suggesting someone handled the cage harshly.
Additionally, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale also draw conclusions from the details and contemplate on their significance. For instance, when the dead canary is found, its neck appears to have been wrung, and both women reach the conclusion that Mr. Wright had killed the bird.
While contemplating on the significance of the dead bird, both connect their own experiences with the bird. Mrs. Hale knows that Minnie was a part of the church choice. Minnie had to stop singing in the choir because Mr. Wright made her stop, and so she concludes that he killed the canary to put an end to its singing. Moreover, since Mrs. Hale herself is the wife of a farmer, she understands the loneliness and solitude of living on the prairie. She assumes that the canary would have been a companion to Minnie, perhaps her only companion. Minnie “had [] years and years of—nothing, then a bird to sing to [her]” (208) and this leads Mrs. Hale to believe that the bird’s death had really upset her. The dead bird reminds Mrs. Peters of her first child who had died when she was homesteading with her husband in the northern plains, and there had been no one to comfort her (208).
In the late 19th and early 20th century, women on Western and Midwestern farms led very isolated lives. It was quite usual for them to spend months and months in log cabins without interacting with other women, or taking a trip to town after years (Hedges 54). These women would combat loneliness by buying canaries and hanging them outside their cabins. These birds would add color to their dull and boring life, sing to them, and keep them sane (Hedges 60).
Like Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, the readers of that time would feel sympathy for how Minnie must have felt when her bird was killed. Mrs. Peters is actually able to relate to the bird’s death more significantly because she remembers that a boy had killed her kitten when she was a child and she admits that if someone “hadn’t held [her] back [she] would [] have hurt him” (207). Since she herself had experienced the rage, she is easily able to understand what Minnie would have felt.
Even though Mrs. Peters’s increasing empathy for Minnie is rooted mostly in what she observes, however, her empathy also strengthens because of the patronizing comments that the men make. Mrs. Peters’s feelings become evident throughout the story. In fact, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are irritated by how the men keep finding faults in the world of women and make them seem less important.
The men even criticize the hardships of women’s work. After seeing the dirty towel, George Henderson, the country attorney exclaims that Minnie was not managing her household properly. Mrs. Hale responds to this by stating women living on a farm have to a considerable amount of work. The men even criticize question the significance of women’s work. The men even laugh and make fun of a woman’s trifling concerns; such how Minnie must have wondered whether she should knot or quilt for the quilt. However, the men do not realize that it is these quilts that keep them warm at night and it was women like Minnie who put effort into making them.
The intelligence and wisdom of women is also questioned by the men. For instance, when George Henderson tells the women to be on the lookout for clues, Mr. Hale interjects by asking, “[W]ould But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” (200). However, the women do not say or do anything in response to the men’s comments. It is ironic that it is the women who discover the clues rather than the men. By the time the story nears its end, Mrs. Peters does not hesitate lying to her husband, which shows that she has changed. When George Henderson walks into the kitchen and asks Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale about the birdcage, Mrs. Hale lies that the cat got the bird. Mrs. Peters then helps cover Mrs. Hale’s lie with another lie, saying that cats are superstitious to justify the absence of a cat in the house. It also seems that the women have build up trust because Mrs. Hale confidently lies, knowing that Mrs. Peter will cover for her.
The story ends way before the readers find out what ultimately happens to Minnie Wright. Similarly, even though Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale reach the conclusion that Minnie had murdered her husband, this fact is debatable and is Glaspell does not explicitly state this in her story. However, what is certain is that women of that time led awful lives, where they rarely had the chance to escape abusive husbands and to find company. Moreover, courts and society would not consider their plight (Ben-Zvi 38). These are issues that Susan Glaspell has emphasized in her short-story “A Jury of Her Peers.” As the story progresses, Mrs. Peters begins to understand these issues as well, and the more deeply she understands, the more she is able to identify with Minnie and Mrs. Hale. At the same time, she is annoyed by the attitudes of the men. Mrs. Peters completely transforms when jokingly say that “she is married to the law” and she hides the empty birdcage, the evidence that could convict Minnie Wright, something she would not have done initially.
Works Cited
Ben-Zvi, Linda. ""Murder, She Wrote": The Genesis of Susan Glaspell's "Trifles"." Theatre Journal. 44.2 (1992): 141-162. Print.
Glaspell, Susan. "A Jury of Her Peers." Trans. ArrayLiterature and Its Writers: A Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. 5th ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. 194-210. Print.
Hedges, Elaine. "Small things reconsidered: Susan Glaspell's “A Jury of her Peers”." Women's Studies: An inter-disciplinary journal. 12.1 (1986): 89-110. Print.
Mustazza, Leonard. "Generic translation and thematic shift in susan glaspell's "trifles" and "a jury of her peers"."Studies in Short Fiction. 26.4 (1989): 489-496. Print.
