A Jury of Her Peers
By: Susan Glaspell

In this story, Martha Hale is suddenly called by her husband to a crime scene.  John Wright was murdered.  As soon as Martha learns of this, she feels a sense of guilt.  She had known Minnie (John's wife) for years and had never visited her.  Mr. Hale explains his knowledge on the situation.  He had been trying to talk John into buying a phone for awhile, so he went over to the Wright's house.  When he got there, Minnie frantically answered the door and said that John had been murdered.  She tells Mr. Hale that John had been strangled. Based on her reaction to the situation, Mr. Hale didn't suspect that Minnie would have killed her husband.  However, we soon learn that Minnie is guilty of the crime.  Her husband had killed her pet bird, so she killed him in return.  The women (Martha and the sheriff's wife) discovered the evidence that revealed this truth.  "Desperately she opened it, started to take the bird out.  But there she broke-she could not touch the bird" (Glaspell).  Martha found a box that contained the dead bird, which reveals Minnie's motive to kill John.  I think that the bird was symbolic.  Minnie said that her husband had told her that she could no longer sing, and then he killed her bird.  I think that the bird symbolized her voice as a woman.  She was upset that her husband would ban her from singing and kill her pet.  She may have felt like he was treating her as an inferior because of her gender.  Either way, I think that Minnie has some problems.  Who kills their husband over a bird?!