What Is Minnie's Role In A Jury Of Her Peers

In Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury Of Her Peers,” Mr. Wright is found dead in his home, strangled by rope, and his murder framed as if his wife, Mrs. Wright is not involved in any way. His neighbor, Mrs. Hale, and the sheriff’s wife, Mrs. Peters, go over to help search for cues to help solve the case. The main goal of the men is to convict Mrs. Wright, commonly referred to as Minnie Foster in the past, of murdering her husband Mr. Wright. The lawyer assisting in the search says if they can find any evidence of anger or sudden change in mood in Mrs. Wright, then they can solve the case. Although Mrs. Wright claims to have been asleep during her husband’s murder, the women conclude she strangled her husband, Mr. Wright, as evidenced by the broken birdcage, …show more content…
Wright’s wife: “No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird,” she said after that—“a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too.” The bird would have brought her happiness, something light hearted, something warm, as well as something to fill the loneliness in her life since they had no children. For Mr. Wright to kill the thing that she loves most must’ve had a large impact on her. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters still try to put together how Mrs. Wright, with a very small build, would even be able to strangle Me. Wright who was quite large. She must’ve had a lot of rage to have enough strength to strangle him. Mrs. Hale is trying to build some compassion for Minnie but Mrs. Peters is still trying to convince herself to abide by the law. She tries to make herself believe that Mrs. Wright was such a monster rather than the fact that Mr. Wright might have driven her to do it and the awful conditions he put on her, but as time passes, Mrs. Peters comes across a memory that helps her build understanding for what Minnies had done. Mrs Peters says, “When I was a girl, … my kitten—there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes—before I could get there—” She covered her face an instant. “If they hadn’t held me back I would have”—she caught herself, looked upstairs where footsteps were heard, and finished weakly—”hurt him.” This is the point unto which Mrs. Peters finally makes a connection …show more content…
The two women discover a quilt that Minnie had been working on and while examining the stitching, Mrs. Peters discovered a block from the quilt that had strange and quite mad stitching on it. Mrs. Peters said, in a troubled way, “All the rest of them have been so nice and even—but—this one. Why, it looks as if she didn’t know what she was about!” Both women notice that there was something that must have come over Mrs. Wright for her to have such a sudden shift. It had appeared as if Mrs. Wright was going to “knot it” rather than quilt it which, apart from its literal meaning, also represented how she killed her husband, the phrase conjuring the image of the rope used to strangle Mr. Wright. Mrs. Hale starts to smooth the stitching out, trying to fix what Minnie had done. It was so tight and scrunched that a great amount of rage must’ve come over Mrs. Wright for her to have drawn the thread so tightly. If she had done all of this quilting, she wouldn’t have had such a drastic change in her stitching, even if she were tired, so it is logical to infer that this drastic change in her stitching had come from her rage as she was contemplating and made the decision to kill her husband which is when she “knotted it.” After realizing this, Mrs. Hale started to smooth the evidence out for she didn’t want the others to see Mrs. Wright’s nervous and