Establishing Female Solidarity and Questioning Domesticity in “A Jury of Her Peers” Anonymous College

Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” is popularly heralded as early feminist literature because the short story features two female characters who are able to solve a murder the male investigators cannot. Mrs. Hale, the narrator of the story, and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, are left downstairs as the men search upstairs for clues; while the men are examining the crime scene, the women discover definite proof that the suspect, Mrs. Wright (Minnie Foster), is guilty—proof only visible to those living under the thumb of the patriarchy—and decide to hide the evidence from investigators. By demonstrating how viewing domestic objects through the lens of homemakers grants insight to Mrs. Wright’s life, “A Jury of Her Peers” argues that enforcing domesticity imprisons women through labor and that female liberation can only be achieved through female solidarity and united resistance.

One object the women gain information from is Mrs. Wright’s rocking chair, a symbol for Foster herself, which shows the breadth and scope of female connection in a patriarchal system. After Mrs. Hale’s husband retells his encounter where Mrs. Wright sits in the chair, the story’s pacing momentarily slows to narrate Mrs. Hale’s impression of the...