A Jury of Her Peers

"A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell

"'Nothing here but kitchen things,' he said, with a little laugh for the insignificance of kitchen things" (Glaspell, 412).

There are many apects to "A Jury of Her Peers" that lead to the conclusion of the story being relevant. First, without reading the story, the title makes the reader believe that a woman has possibly done some sort of crime and a group of her peers, women, are her jury in a trial. The irony of that comes through as the reader quickly learns of Mrs. Wright's crime of killing her husband and the investigation ensues. The relevation comes through that Mrs. Wright's "jury" of investigators is a group of men who look down on women. Furthermore, the attitude the men have against the women end up hurting the impending investigation of the murder as the men are rude to the women that could potentially help them in the investigation. As the story comes to an end, the women decided to not tell the men what they discovered about Mrs. Wright's motive to kill her husband. The bond of the women who are similar from their situation of being oppressed by their husbands provides them a reason to not tell on Mrs. Wright as they understand her situation. At the end of the story, it is clear that the title of the story can be taken from another perspective. That perspective is the jury being of the women in an informal way. The women were the jury that decided whether or not to turn the evidence in to the men and therefore, the women decided whether or not Mrs. Wright is found guilty of the crime.