A Jury Of Her Peers Feminist Analysis

Justice is defined as the attainment of what is just, especially that which is fair, moral, right, merited, or in accordance with law. Although justice is commonly affiliated with the punishment of one who has broken the law, that is not always the case. There are some cases in which the convicted criminal is also a victim, which causes normal areas of black and white to fade to grey. In “A Jury of Her Peers,” written by Susan Glaspell, this grey area is what results in the main conflict for Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters. These women decide to keep what they know to themselves, directly defying their husbands. Although defiance was a factor itself, there were also many other factors that influenced the unspoken decision of keeping the information they discovered, the motive of the murder, to themselves.
“A Jury of Her Peers,” written in 1917, illustrates the role of women in the early nineteenth century to be very different than the role they play in today’s …show more content…
Hale and Mrs. Peters. Even though Mrs. Peters was discussing how crime must be punished, Mrs. Hale replied with, “I wish you’d seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang” (287). She also says, “Oh, I wish I’d come over here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who’s going to punish that?” (287). These quotes show the indifference felt by Mrs. Hale toward the subject of Mrs. Wright’s crime, and her primary focal point being the guilt she felt. Mrs. Hale knew if she would’ve came to visit Mrs. Wright, she wouldn’t have been as lonely and the overall quality of her life would’ve been better. The results of her visiting could have changed the outcome of the entire situation, saving Mrs. Wright from committing this act and going to jail. She also felt that what she did was a crime itself, leaving Mrs. Wright alone when she knew about her home