Mrs. Peters

Character Analysis

The Good Wife

Mrs. Peters is Mrs. Hale's partner in crime, which might be kind of an unlikely role for a sheriff's wife. Of course, when we first meet Mrs. Peters we'd never guess she'd become Thelma to anyone's Louise. The stage directions describe Mrs. Peters as "a slight wiry woman, [with] a thin nervous face" (1).

Doesn't sound like much of a rebel, huh? Well, for most of the play, she's the opposite of that. Unlike Mrs. Hale, who's not afraid to give the men a little attitude, Mrs. Peters makes excuses for the guys when they toss sexist comments the ladies' way. Here are some of our favorites snippets:

MRS. HALE: I'd hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticising. [...]
MRS PETERS: Of course it's no more than their duty. (51-52)

MRS. HALE: (resentfully) I don't know as there's anything so strange, our takin' up our time with little things while we're waiting for them to get the evidence. [...] I don't see as it's anything to laugh about.
MRS. PETERS: (apologetically) Of course they've got awful important things on their minds. (78-79)

As things get more intense as she and Mrs. Hale solve the mystery, Mrs. Peters continually reminds Mrs. Hale of how gruesome the murder was and that the law must be upheld. Being the Sheriff's wife, Mrs. Peters probably feels an extra duty to make sure that "justice is served."
The County Attorney even reminds her that she's "Married to the law" (147).

The Good-Bad Wife

By the end of play, though, Mrs. Peters takes the biggest journey of any other character when she stands with Mrs. Hale in hiding the evidence that could convict Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Peters' feelings of duty to the law and her husband are crushed by her feelings of empathy for the murderess.

The Sheriff's wife can feel Mrs. Wright's rage over Mr. Wright murdering her canary because Mrs. Peters felt the same kind of rage when a boy chopped up her kitten with a hatchet. (Uh, horrible. We can see why.) Mrs. Peters also totally gets Mrs. Wright's feelings of loneliness and depression. These lines say it best:

MRS. PETERS: (something within her speaking) I know what stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died—after he was two years old, and me with no other then—[...] I know what stillness is. (133-135)

Though she's still wrestling with herself up to the very end, Mrs. Peters beats Mrs. Hale to the punch and is the first to try and shove the bird in her pocket at the end. The box doesn't fit, and she's too freaked out to actually touch the canary's body (gross), but it's Mrs. Peters' trying that sparks Mrs. Hale to hide the evidence in the big pockets of her coat. She might be wiry and nervous, but by the time Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Wright are done with her, Mrs. Peters is a worthy partner in crime.