Eudora Welty in The Ponder Heart creates three female characters who fight to end the deadening stereotypes of enmeshed racism, class prejudice, and gender bias which the white, rich men and women of Clay County, Mississippi spout forth. As each woman takes on the role of storyteller, she works to weave a plot that will enable her to get her just rewards: Edna Earle, her inheritance, Narciss, her power, and Bonnie Dee, respect. All three women are potential suspects in Welty’s buried murder plot. Close readings of Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” (1916) and Melville’s Benito (1855) expose multiple intertextual clues about Edna, Narciss, and Bonnie Dee’s plotting.The Ponder Heart is not only, as critics have supposed, a light comedy, but also a feminist addition to, and critical deconstruction of, the murder mystery and film noir genre of the 1950’s.