closer reading: "A Jury of Her Peers"

Portrayal of Women in “A Jury of Her Peers”

In the early 1900s, it was common knowledge that women were homemakers. Their daily lives consisted of cooking, cleaning, tending to the children, and other basic chores in the house. The women were usually uneducated because they were married at such a young age. The men were the workers and the brains of the town. Women accepted this because they did not know any better. To them, that was how life was for all American woman. Wives obeyed their husbands because they were the dominant figure in the family. Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” is a 1917 short story that paints a perfect picture of the treatment women received in the early 1900s.

The story is set in Dickson County, a small and quiet country town. Martha Hale and the sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peters, accompany their husbands to the Wright’s house, their long-time neighbors. The sheriff is investigating the house because Mr. Wright had been murdered, and Mrs. Wright is the prime subject. The sheriff asks Mr. Hale to come along because he visited the Wright’s house the previous morning to ask Mr. Wright a question. After Mr. Hale answers some questions, the sheriff decides to continue investigation upstairs where Mr. Wright was found in bed with a rope around his neck. Mr. Hale asks the sheriff if he’s certain there is no evidence in the kitchen. The sheriff says, “Nothing here but kitchen things.” Glaspell writes that the sheriff replies “with a little laugh for the insignificance on kitchen things.” This is a glimpse of how men viewed the work women did as inferior and unimportant.

In almost all of the conversation between the men in the story, there are comments made that criticize and somewhat mock the women. A few lines later in the story, when the sheriff accidentally places his hand in a sticky fruit mess. The wives explain that Mrs. Wright was worried about her jars of fruit bursting from the cold. The men in the room all laugh and Mr. Hale says, “Women are used to worrying over trifles.” Any women who has ever canned fresh fruit knows how much work it takes, it certainly would not be a “trifle” to Mrs. Wright. The men have no idea how long and tedious canning fruit is, so they have no regard for the effort. Further on in the same conversation, a few comments are made about Mrs. Wright being a bad housekeeper because her towels are dirty. The men expect everything to be perfect, and if it’s not, that automatically makes women bad housekeepers.

The men instruct the women to stay downstairs while they proceed to go upstarts. At this point in the story, the county attorney says, “...no telling; you women might come upon a clue to the motive- and that’s the thing we need.” Mr. Hale responds to this comment by saying, “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” Naturally, anything remotely suspicious could be a clue, and anybody with common sense could pick out something suspicious or out of the ordinary. Mr. Hale, as well as the rest of the men think of the women as less intelligent because they spend their days in the house, therefor housework is the only subject they’re familiar with. Which, in the case of this story, is totally ironic because it’s the women who wind up finding the most important clues.

While the men are upstairs the women poke about the house, discussing the condition of things and the murder. The women come upon individual quilt squares, and Mrs. Hale asked Mrs. Peters, “Do you suppose she [Mrs. Wright] was going to quilt it or just knot it?” The sheriff overheard the question when walking down the steps, and he sarcastically exclaims, “They wonder whether she was going to quilt it or just knot it!” The question is perfectly sensible between two women making conversation in a strange environment. The sheriff looked at the question as meaningless. The rest of the way through the story there are similar shots made to the women.

The majority of the story is the women finding evidence and eventually solving the murder on their own, they never do tell their husbands what they found. They discovered Mrs. Wright killed her husband because she was miserable, and he was more than likely rude and abusive. There is a sense of understanding in the women. They live with men who look down on them as well. Mrs. Peters says to Mrs. Hale, “It’s a good thing the men couldn’t hear us! Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a–dead canary...as if that could have anything to do with–with–my, wouldn’t they laugh?”

At the end of the story, the men turn up with nothing and the women solve the case themselves. The county attorney says at the end, “At least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to– what is it you call it ladies?” “We call it–knot it, Mr. Henderson,” says Mrs. Hale.

“A Jury of Her Peers” shows perfectly the way women were treated in the early 1900s. The story also shows how obedient the women were, even though they realized their mistreatment. No doubt that men were the dominant figure in almost every American family during that time. Thankfully, nowadays women have more rights and opportunity. Even though there is not total equality, women are no longer afraid to compete with men and speak their minds. I know Glaspell would be thrilled to know the nature of men and women in this day and age.