A Jury of Her Peers

“She hated to see things half done; but she had been at that when the team from town stopped to get Mr. Hale, and then the sheriff came running in to say his wife wished Mrs. Hale would come too—adding, with a grin, that he guessed she was getting scarey and wanted another woman along.” 

Mrs. Hale leaves her flour half sifted when she is called to help with an investigation. Right from the beginning, Glaspell indicates the men’s attitudes toward women: the sheriff grins at his wife’s desire to have another woman along with her, he’s dismissive of her feelings and finds it humorous that she wants another woman’s company because she’s afraid.

“She had met Mrs. Peters the year before at the country fair, and the thing she remembered about her was that she didn’t seem like a sheriff’s wife. She was small and thin and didn’t have a strong voice.”

Mrs. Hale believes that Mrs. Peters is timid and compliant because of her appearance. At this point, she doesn’t believe that Mrs. Peters has much to offer the situation; that she has no inner strength.

“But if Mrs. Peters didn’t look like a sheriff’s wife, Peters made it up in looking like a sheriff. He was to a dot the kind of man who could get himself elected sheriff—a heavy man with a big voice, who was particularly genial with the law-abiding, as if to make it plain that he knew the difference between criminals and non-criminals.” 

Mrs. Hale’s observations in the buggy on the way to the Wright house continue with the sheriff. Glaspell quickly establishes the notion that appearances are important in this story, but they may or may not prove to be true.