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A Jury of her Peers

How Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are, peers of Mrs. Wright in a way that an all-male jury

could not be?

 They are empathetic and possess a superior ability to de-code the narrative of Minnie

Wright's life (Schotland 53). Moreover, they have a care-moral orientation something that an all-

male jury cannot have. According to Gilligan (66) who tries to improve one feminist justice

theory that assists in justifying Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters’ decision, states that the way women

perceive and evaluate moral issues is very different from the way men perceive and evaluate

moral problems. For instance, women are linked with an ethic of caring while men are linked

with an ethic of rights (Weisbrod 62). A care-moral orientation (an ethic of caring) regards

fairness in respect of relationships and bonds/ties while a justice-moral orientation (an ethic of

rights) regards fairness in respect of regulations and a standard of equality. Because of the care

orientation, the women get to take a look at the factors that led to the death of John Wright and

consider if it was justifiable or unjustifiable. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters found hints that

demonstrate a history of mental abuse that drove Mrs. Wright into strangling her husband. The

apparent motive for Mrs. Wright's actions is discovered when the dead body of a singing bird is

found by the two women with its neck broken. Since the play took place in 1917, a time when an

all-male jury would have convicted Mrs. Wright, the two women concealed the evidence because

they empathized with Minnie and felt bound in protecting their fellow women. During this time,
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women had no voice and therefore, were expected to be submissive to their husbands and due to

this; both Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters understood what it was like to be in an abusive relationship

as a woman and that is why they acted as a mini jury of Mrs. Wright’s gender peers and opted to

hide the evidence.

In a literal sense, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters obstruct justice by concealing evidence that

connects Mrs. Wright to the murder. In what sense could it be said that Mrs. Hale and

Mrs. Peters were serving some higher form of justice than the letter of the law?

It could be said that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters were serving some higher form of justice

than the letter of the law when they considered certain matters. For instance, according to them,

murder was not a criminal offense in instances where the victim was the one who precipitated the

crime. From the play, we see that Mr. Wright’s actions towards Mrs. Wright were the main cause

of his death. For instance, John Wright abused his wife Mrs. Wright more often. This was

revealed by Mrs. Hale who was Mrs. Wright’s neighbor for twenty years. She acknowledged

Minnie even before she was espoused. From the play, we see Mrs. Hale commenting on how

Mrs. Wright changed from a bubbly and joyful girl before she was hitched into a passive and sad

woman after the wedlock. She further stated how John Wright’s stinginess made Minnie

incapable of joining the ladies auxiliary hence giving rise to her loneliness, isolation, and

sadness. She also stated how she wished she would have visited but then it was impossible

because John Wright didn’t want any visitors (the house wasn’t “cheerful”) (Glaspell).

Moreover, she described John as "a hard man. . . Like a raw wind that gets to the bone"

(Glaspell). Lastly, when extrapolating that John Wright was the one who murdered the bird, she

comments that Mr. Wright obviously wouldn't like the canary--"a thing that sang. She used to

sing. He killed that too" (Glaspell). The evidence provided above clearly shows how Mr. Wright
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abused Mrs. Wright psychologically and that is why Mrs. Wright ended up strangling him.

Therefore, by Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters concealing the evidence served the highest form of

justice than the letter of the law because John Wright’s abusive behavior towards Mrs. Wright

precipitated his death. Furthermore, they are more of a “jury of her peers” because they were

able to judge Mrs. Wright’s problems. If they had chosen to hand over the evidence to the letter

of the law, Mrs. Wright would have been found guilty because the psychological abuse that

pushed her to murder her husband wouldn’t have been taken into consideration since women in

the 20th century were treated unjustly.

In what sense is this play about freedom and confinement, sexism, and the bonds that often

hold women together?

This play is about freedom and confinement in the sense that it shows how lack of

freedom can lead one to make independent choices. For instance, the lack of freedom is what

made Mrs. Wright kill her husband. She was tired of how her husband isolated her from her

friends and the outside world. And because the bird that gave her a sense of freedom, happiness

and peace was murdered, a time had come to fight for her freedom. The author further illustrates

how women’s confinement to the home sphere builds a shared female experience that men

cannot comprehend. This is seen where Mrs. Hale tells Mrs. Peters that as women, they all go

through a different kind of the same thing. The plight of the women living in a society that is

dominated by men bound the two women together and that is why they protected Mrs. Wright by

hiding the evidence. It is also about sexism in the sense that it shows how women were

considered inferior objects in the twentieth century. Throughout the story, the underlying tones

of sexism can be witnessed frequently. For instance, the men in the play constantly disrespect the

women by making accusations about how they worry about unimportant things and fail to
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acknowledge the crucial things This can be seen in Mr. Hale’s comment when he said, “Women

are used to worrying over trifles”. They even regard them as weak creatures that cannot help in

finding the evidence. The irony of the comment of women worrying over trifles is that it is the

same women that found the evidence that would convict Mrs. Wright.

What do you believe is the main theme of the play?

The main theme of the play is gender roles. The author portrays the marginalization of

women and their contribution to society most clearly via the differentiation between what is

regarded as “men’s job” (detecting and solving delinquency), and “women’s job” (which is

staying away from criminal investigations and remaining in the kitchen, carrying out tasks that

are not important like collecting Mrs. Wright’s clothes. Mr. Hale and Mr. Peter severally insult

their spouses directly and brush off the importance and skills of women. The county attorney

disrespectfully treats the two females, assuming they are too weak to offer any help.

The significance of the women’s potentiality to unravel the delinquency and take Minnie

Wright’s fate out of the men’s hands shows the power in the women’s method of reasoning and

the ways they can navigate the restrictions imposed on them. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters’ choice

of concealing the evidence that would render Mrs. Wright guilty changes the story from one that

is about man’s law into one that is about women’s justice.

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Works Cited

Glaspell, Susan. A Jury of Her Peers Full Text of the Story, 1917, www.owleyes.org/text/a-jury-

of-her-peers/read/a-jury-of-her-peers#root-36.

Schotland, Sara D. When Ethical Principles and Feminist Jurisprudence Collide: An

Unorthodox Reading of "A Jury of Her of Her Peers" , vol. 24, no. 1, 2009, pp. 53–71.,

scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1001&context=jcred.

Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Harvard

University Press, 1982.

Weisbrod, Carol. Images of the Woman Juror, vol. 9, 1986, pp. 59–82.,

opencommons.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1360&context=law_papers.