The tone of “A Jury of Her Peers” is frustrated and restrained. The story is centered on a woman (Mrs. Hale) who, in the presence of the male characters, must act more passive and less intelligent than she really is and, in the presence of the one other female character (Mrs. Peters), still feels she must control her impulses, for fear that Mrs. Peters will ally herself with the men.
Mrs. Hale’s frustration—and the restrained tone of the story—comes across in moments like the following, when the narrator grants a look into Mrs. Hale’s mind:
She stopped. It was as if her mind tripped on something. Her eye was caught by a dish towel in the middle of the kitchen table. Slowly she moved toward the table. One half of it was wiped clean, the other half messy. Her eyes made a slow, almost unwilling turn to the bucket of sugar and the half empty bag beside it. Things begun—and not finished.
After a moment she stepped back, and said, in that manner of releasing herself: "Wonder how they're finding things upstairs?"
This passage is one of several in which the narrator points out Mrs. Hale’s desire to act on something (such as discerning signs of anger in Minnie Wright's messy kitchen), and how she must hold herself back. Instead of giving in to her impulses, she "step[s] back" as an act of "releasing herself" and nonchalantly asks about how the men's search for evidence is going. Mrs. Hale's reluctance to speak up about what she sees is representative of the ways in which Mrs. Hale tries to keep her composure throughout the story.
Of course, Mrs. Hale does eventually act on her impulses, deciding to hide the evidence of Mrs. Wright’s motive for murder (the dead bird) from the men, trusting that Mrs. Peters will be her ally in the process. Though Mrs. Peters does support her decision, Mrs. Hale ends the story feeling terrified that the men will discover what she has done, leaving the tone in an anxious and unresolved place.
