"A Jury of Her Peers" Pg. 426 Question 1

                Much irony can be found in the title of “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell. While the structure of the plot of the story is centered on determining who and what caused the death of Mr. Wright, the ultimate essence and theme expressed in the story were rooted in sexism. This work of Glaspell was first published in 1917, at a time in American history when women were not given the right to vote nor the right to be judged by a jury of peers, and women were often seen as having little purpose in daily life other than to fret over trifling things such as the cleanliness of dish towels in the kitchen. This view of women is conveyed by the three principle men in the story, Mr. Hale, Mr. Peters, and Mr. Henderson, the young attorney. Although the two women are brought along to the scene of the crime so that Mrs. Peters can gather a few essential items for Mrs. Wright, who is being detained under order of the law, and so that Mrs. Hale can give Mrs. Peters company, the two women are in no way expected to contribute in any way to the solving of the murder mystery. In fact, the men find a way of criticizing the women for their apparent simple-mindedness and lack of functionality in life throughout the duration of their visit to the Wright home. For example, the men act condescendingly towards the women when they discover them worrying over the state of Mrs. Wright’s canned fruit and quilt patterns. However, as the egotistical men search boldly for evidence of a murder, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters alone are able to discern that Mrs. Wright was in fact Mr. Wright’s murderer, as well as what her motives were in killing her own husband.

                The considerations mentioned above are what make the title “A Jury of Her Peers” very ironic in nature. While women in that time period were not allowed to ever serve on a jury, nor would women such as Mrs. Wright be given a jury of her peers in court, it was the only two women at the scene of the crime, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, who were able to determine Mrs. Wright’s motives in killing her husband quite simply because they themselves were women, too. After discovering Mrs. Wright’s precious bird dead from a wrung neck and entombed in a very elaborate box, the women determine that Mr. Wright must have killed her bird out of maliciousness and irreverence towards his wife’s happiness. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters begin to understand that Mrs. Wright may have killed her husband simply because she was driven to insanity by the solitude, loneliness, and lack of love and companionship that suffocated her in her empty abode and was perpetuated by the stoic attitude of Mr. Wright. Upon discovering the dead bird, Mrs. Hale remarks, “I wonder how it would seem… never to have any children around? …No, Wright wouldn’t like that bird… a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too” (Glaspell, 423). This excerpt proves that the women understood the oppression which Mrs. Wright must have felt by her husband because their metaphorical “song” had been crushed by their own husbands and men at large, as well. There, the title “A Jury of Her Peers” is ironic because, despite the fact that women were not believed capable of great intelligence or the ability to solve a murder mystery, the women alone were the only ones able to solve the mystery because they could sympathize with the motives of a woman whose hopes, dreams, and happiness had been crushed by her inferiority and loneliness. The women’s defiance at the conclusion of the story also reinforces the notion that all women were resistance to the sexism they all endured.