A Jury Of Her Peers Ethical Analysis

Words: 792
Pages: 4

In “A Jury of Her Peers” the sheriff and the county attorney are trying to find evidence against Mrs. Wright who they think strangled her husband. The two men bring along Mrs. Peters, Mr. Hale, who found the body, and Mrs. Hale. Both the men and the women exhibit an ethical dilemma throughout the story. An ethical dilemma is defined as a choice of two options, both of which might bring a negative result. The ethical dilemma in “A Jury of Her Peers” is whether or not they should turn in the evidence they find against Minnie Wright. Susan Glaspell presents the choices by showing the women choosing the option to protect Mrs. Wright and the men choosing to find evidence that will convict her. The women choose to protect her by hiding the evidence they found that would prove Mrs. Wright guilt because …show more content…
Wright was because they both felt that Mr. Wright had taken the life out of Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Hale states that when she was Minnie Foster, before becoming Mrs. Wright, she was such a lively girl who always wore pretty clothes and sang in the choir. Later on the women find a bird cage, but there was no bird. Susan Glaspell includes the canary in the story as a metaphor comparing it to Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Hale tells Mrs. Peters “she was kind of like a bird herself. Real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and fluttery.” She also states that Minnie’s singing voice was as pretty as a bird’s. Soon afterward the women find the canary dead in Mrs. Wright’s sewing basket with its neck broken. They believe that Mr. Wright killed the bird just like he killed Minnie’s spirt. Susan Glaspell expresses Mrs. Hale’s feelings towards the subject by writing, “the fact that she had lived neighbor to that girl for twenty years, and had let her die of lack of life, was suddenly more than she could bear.” The women do not tell the men that Mr. Wright killed the bird instead they tell them the cat go to the bird, but Mrs. Wright did not have a