"A Jury of Her Peers" is a short story by Susan Glaspell

Susan Glaspell

Susan Keating Glaspell was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, actress, director, novelist, biographer and poet. She was a founding member of the Provincetown Players, one of the most important collaboratives in the development of modern drama in the United States...

, loosely based on the murder of John Hossack, which Glaspell covered while working as a journalist. It is seen as an example of early feminist literature

Feminist theory

Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical discourse, it aims to understand the nature of gender inequality...

, because two female characters are able to solve a mystery that the male characters cannot, aided by their knowledge of women's psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

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Glaspell originally wrote the story as a one-act play entitled Trifles

Trifles

Trifles is a one-act play by Susan Glaspell. Her short story, "A Jury of Her Peers", was adapted from the play a year after its debut. It was first performed by the Provincetown Players at the Wharf Theatre in Provincetown, Massachusetts on August 8, 1916. In the original play, Glaspell played the...

for the Provincetown Players in 1916.

In 2008, The Library of America selected the original newspaper article upon which "A Jury of Her Peers" is based, "The Hossack Murder," for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.

Plot Summary

“A Jury of Her Peers” chronicles the discovery of and subsequent investigation into John Wright’s murder. The story begins on a cold windy day in Dickson County with Martha Hale, being abruptly called to ride to a crime scene with Lewis Hale, her husband; Sheriff Peters, the county sheriff; and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife. She rushes out to join them in the buggy and the group sets off. They arrive at the scene of the crime, the Wright’s lonesome-looking house. Immediately Mrs. Hale exhibits feeling of guilt for not visiting her friend Minnie Foster since Foster had married and become Mrs. Wright (the dead man's wife) twenty years prior. Once the whole group is safely inside the house, Mr. Hale is asked to describe, to the county attorney, George Henderson, what he had seen and experienced the day prior. Despite the serious circumstances, he delivers his story in a long-winded and poorly thought-out manner, tendencies he struggles to avoid throughout. The story begins with Mr. Hale venturing to Mr. Wright’s house to convince Wright to get a telephone. Upon entering the house he finds Mrs. Wright in a delirious state and comes to learn that Mr. Wright has allegedly been strangled into each other's company. The women's curious nature and peculiar attention to minute details allow them to find evidence of Mrs. Wright's guilt and of her provocations and motives, while the men are unable to procure any evidence. The women, finding justification in Mrs. Wright’s actions, go about hiding what they find from the men. In the end, their obstruction of evidence will seemingly prevent a conviction. The story ends here, and does not move into the occurrences after they leave the house.

External links

• LibriVox reading
• Audio dramatization