A Jury of Her Peers

Described as a big, strong farm woman, Martha is also perceptive, intelligent, and compassionate. She feels a kinship with her closest neighbor, Minnie Foster Wright, from the beginning of the story. Her sense of their connection, which began in their shared childhood, grows deeper as she discovers the truth about Minnie’s married life.

She knows John Wright as a hard and difficult man, with whom it would be impossible to live happily. She eventually castigates herself for not keeping up her friendship with Minnie. Knowing that Minnie was driven to murder her husband by twenty years of emotional and physical deprivation, culminating in the cruel murder of her beloved bird, Martha feels a sense of responsibility toward Minnie Wright. She believes that her friendship and caring could have helped Minnie through the years.

It is Mrs. Hale’s perceptions and point of view that the omniscient narrator reveals most fully. She is the one who puts the pieces together and forces Mrs. Peters to understand what has happened in the Wrights’ house. She is the one who understands John Wright’s character and Minnie Foster Wright’s life as a young girl. Furthermore, her intimate knowledge of the hard, busy, demanding, and isolated life of a farm wife means that she understands exactly what Minnie Wright’s life was like.