A Jury Of Her Peers Rhetorical Analysis

A story of murder, fear, and the temptation of betrayal is one that easily snatches up the attention of audiences. In “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell, the author uses her southern female characters to emphasize the direct relationship between friendship and connection. Her plot circles around the disastrous discovery of their fellow housewife’s marital murder, and the events that unfolded causing their ultimate decision in prosecuting or shielding her from the men in the story. The author implements revealing dialogue with subtle detailing and glaring symbolism to display the coveted friendships among women above other relationships and that the paths they take to secure them stem from inveterate personal connections.
A majority of

this story’s content relies on the exposing dialogue among the characters. As the women begin to uncover the crime secretly, their discussions reveal their feelings of connection and reluctant attitudes toward incriminating a fellow housewife. This is displayed clearly when the empty bird cage is found to be brutally disheveled, something that would have surely provided the first hint to a possible murder motive. Their facial expressions are unseen to readers, but can be easily visualized when “Again their eyes met...Mrs. Hale turning away said brusquely: “If they’re going to find any evidence, I wish they’d be about it. I don’t like this place.”’ (Glaspell 11). Although all of the women realized the importance of the newfound evidence, they purposely turned away from it to avoid being the prosecutors of Minnie Foster. It was clear that they understood Mrs. Wright’s hardships more than they felt obligated to let on, for according to The Sitting Bee, "when Mrs. Peters remembers the incident of the young boy killing her cat (when she was a child) it brings her closer to understanding why Minnie may have killed John Wright." (Bee 1) At this point, some of the first signs of the stirred sympathies towards Foster become obvious. The dialogue also displayed the gradual shift of the women’s opinions from siding with their husbands to protecting Minnie. “‘Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?’...There’s a great deal of work to be done on a farm,” said Mrs. Hale stiffly” (Glaspell 5). The wives were content to allow the men to go about their business and fulfill their jobs as they usually tended to do until the men started to patronize the women’s physical and mental abilities. It was then that what was considered paramount to the women shifted into a profound yet secretive betrayal of the men accompanying their inadequate feeling lives. The need to comfort a fellow friend in any way possible outweighed their strenuous alliances with their husbands, the dialogue examining the deeply rooted connections sprouting between the three characters. Though it can be argued that the unspoken messages traveling between Hale and Peters were more telling, Glaspell relies on their vocal communication to one another to vividly show their thought processes as they searched for a way to control an uncontrollable situation.
In order to reiterate the effects of such patronization, Glaspell’s delicate selection of detail pairs with the dialogue as a further guide to the character transformations taking place.

The females begin responding “stiffly” rather than “quietly”(7) as before. This adjective usage serves to support the speech even more by allowing readers to see the progression from silence to a bold rebellion in the women regarding their husbands, for “by hiding the canary Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are also going against their husbands” (Bee2). Indeed, this act was the major act of defiance that secured the women’s strengthened devotions to each other rather than their husbands. Peters especially undergoes a drastic transformation when she eventually joins in as “support of her fellow oppressed women” (Block B 1). When, at the climax of the story, the bird is hidden from the men in the sentimental tin box, Glaspell exhibits the tension with the selection of detail. She chooses to focus on the clammy hands of Mrs. Peters as she stuffs the tin away and the quivering voice of Mrs. Hale as she denies knowing any information about the crime. The descriptions of the seemingly miniscule and weakening objects around her house match the “quiet desperation” (Schotland 3) Foster repressed until it overflowed the night before. Considering that the adjectives show how burdensome it is for the women to conceal the evidence, it truly demonstrates how strong the relationships between them has grown based

on their own personal connections and understandings. Their own unique reactions to the situation around them accompany the tender dialogue as they demonstrate the switch from tenuous support to a full--blown vindication for Foster.
Symbolism can be uncovered in every aspect of this story. The symbols we see, such as the deceased canary, birdcage, fruit, and rocking chair embody the fates of the other characters as their own. It even seems, in fact, that there are more hidden truths expressed in these symbols than the characters choose to emphasize themselves. After discovering the bird in particular, the characters are able to express their concerns as they realize the similarities found through the deceased animal when they realize it was “a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too”(Glaspell 10). This comparison is clear as the women realize that when the bird was killed, a part of Mrs. Wright, or even the young version of herself named Minnie Foster, was murdered as well. It is then brutally obvious that “Though sympathetic to Minnie Wright, the women cannot deny the damning clues that lead them to the inescapable conclusion of her guilt” (Tate 1). The deteriorating condition of her house seems to match the attitudes of the women, as their moral code appears more hackneyed as well. Their understanding of her pain is explored even further when they look back at her younger self, at the times when she filled with happiness and song. Margaret Tate makes a valid point when she concludes that “Minnie has endured many years of misery at the hands of John Wright, but he push[ed] her too far when he kill[ed] the bird” (2). Most of the objects in the story are described as unfinished or broken, existing to draw the comparison to the life of Mrs. Wright. When the female’s discover the ruined fruit preserves, however, the author seems to be including the other characters into the extended idea when one of the woman walks “ toward the cupboard the county attorney had opened, and got on the chair, murmuring: “I wonder if it’s all gone”(Glaspell 283). Soon after, Mrs. Peters also expresses her dismay with the sight. Preserving fruit was one of the things the wives also had as part of their responsibilities, and to see another woman’s ruined and time-consuming product is devastating to them. The ruined fruit embodies not only Mrs. Wright’s ruined life, but the now charred lives of the other women who are under the microscope. Even though her crime deviated the attention to all wives in the town, it entwined them all into a single powerful force. The fruit may have been left in a shattered jar, but it managed to congeal together like the women trying to leap above the men’s “cold lack of understanding of and compassion” (Block B 2) for them. Every symbol served as a reminder that any of the them could have committed the crime due to their similar situations.
Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” proves that with clever dialogue and strategically hidden symbolism and selective detail, the valued relationships and connections between women through life-changing events can be displayed.The analyzed devices proved that Wright and Peters found the courage to alleviate Foster from prosecution during the tedious journey of evidence gathering they embarked on.

It solidified the truth unacknowledged to them earlier--their friendships among each other were valued above their less than satisfactory marriages in their minds, something that if uncovered by their husbands would have surely placed them under detrimental suspicion. Throughout the story, after surviving the odds and preserving a dangerously unsteady life, the female characters proved that their devotion to each other could conquer the power struggle against the forced commitments they lived in. Society deemed their marriages to be untouchable and unable to be disputed in any way, but with the sturdy connections among them, wives found a way to tamper with the stereotypes and secure a better future for their fellow struggling

companion.