British primatologist and anthropologist, Dr. Jane Goodwall known for her extensive knowledge of conservation and animal welfare issues once stated, “For me, the sight of a bird living in a cage, deprived of flight, and miserably bored, breaks my heart. And the bird’s too, perhaps.” Similar to the way caged birds yearn for a free life outside their cell, women during the turn of the twentieth century also felt held captive by strict gender roles and marriages comparable to dictatorships. In Susan Glaspell’s short story, A Jury of Her Peers, the character of Mrs. Peters is a timid sheriff’s wife who follows her husband to a crime scene in which a wife is accused of killing her husband in his sleep. Despite her ties to the law and the expectations
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Peters behaves in an extremely nervous and private manner. She feels uncomfortable discussing the crime scene, often stutters, and “abruptly stops… at the sound of her own laugh.” (10) However, Mrs. Peters experiences a shift in attitude after discovering the female suspect’s dead pet bird and its empty cage, leaving Mrs. Peters to assume that the suspect did kill her husband because he took away something precious to her. Mrs. Peters begins to feel true understanding for the suspect because she too has had something precious taken away from her—her individuality. This transformation in Mrs. Peters’ perspective allows readers a more in-depth look into the mind of Mrs. Peters as she then shares a recollection of when “a boy took a hatchet” to her kitten and if not held back she “would have hurt him.” (16) This wave of empathy triggers something within Mrs. Peters, creating the thought that although she is unable to break free from the restrains of her gender and her husband, she can help another woman, the female suspect, do so. Within a short second, Mrs. Peters rebels against harsh feminine expectations and those of an introverted, law-abiding sheriff’s wife by “getting the box” in which the dead bird lays and “trying to put it in her handbag” in order to hide the female suspect’s evidence of motive.
Peters behaves in an extremely nervous and private manner. She feels uncomfortable discussing the crime scene, often stutters, and “abruptly stops… at the sound of her own laugh.” (10) However, Mrs. Peters experiences a shift in attitude after discovering the female suspect’s dead pet bird and its empty cage, leaving Mrs. Peters to assume that the suspect did kill her husband because he took away something precious to her. Mrs. Peters begins to feel true understanding for the suspect because she too has had something precious taken away from her—her individuality. This transformation in Mrs. Peters’ perspective allows readers a more in-depth look into the mind of Mrs. Peters as she then shares a recollection of when “a boy took a hatchet” to her kitten and if not held back she “would have hurt him.” (16) This wave of empathy triggers something within Mrs. Peters, creating the thought that although she is unable to break free from the restrains of her gender and her husband, she can help another woman, the female suspect, do so. Within a short second, Mrs. Peters rebels against harsh feminine expectations and those of an introverted, law-abiding sheriff’s wife by “getting the box” in which the dead bird lays and “trying to put it in her handbag” in order to hide the female suspect’s evidence of motive.