12 Angry Men is a play written by Reginald Rose. The play tells of a sixteen year old boy that was tried for premeditated first degree manslaughter and the twelve men on the jury who discussed the verdict. The unanimous decision ultimately would decide the boy’s fate of life or death. The twelve jurors all had very different and important parts in the discussion of the ruling. Rose incorporated dialogue between Juror 10 and the other jurors to contribute to the idea of prejudice obscuring the truth. The dialogue of Juror 10 and his remarks about “those people” come up multiple times in the play. First, Juror 10’s views and prejudices about people from the slums begin at the very beginning of the book. After the first vote for the verdict of the trial, Juror 8 voted not guilty and said that he believed the boy deserved for all the men to talk about the trial. Juror 10 who had voted guilty felt as though the boy had already had a fair trial and that, “He’s lucky he got …show more content…
Then, Juror 8 questioned why the boy would yell that and that he was too bright to do something like that. In response, Juror 10 stated, “ He’s a common, ignorant slob. He don’t even speak good english” (37). Once again, he used his prejudice against the people from slums and made the assumption that the boy is dumb and can’t speak proper english. The statement is quite ironic because Juror 10 speaks that last part of his sentence in improper English, while saying that the boy can't speak English well. He constantly judged the boy and believed that he was guilty when they were actually similar in a way. He was too stubborn and prejudice against the boy that he did and said anything that would make the verdict guilty, even when he contradicted himself which prohibited the truth from coming
No matter the motives of any juror, each can be traced back to Juror Eight, and the fact that he was brave enough to stand against the crowd. In the end, every juror eventually reached the verdict of not guilty, but there was still a very long process to get there, and many people that produced the answers for the others. Juror Eight is the only reason anyone in this play made a single sound, and he may have eventually been brought down if Juror Nine hadn’t changed his vote to support him. They worked as a team, with Juror Five soon joining in, Juror Eight had an incredible impact on everyone in that room, and he is the reason a boy who was most likely innocent was set
Since he is unable to look into the facts and is in denial when they are presented, he does not closely analyse the details because deep down, he wants the boy to die, guilty or not. Had Juror 8 voted guilty, the boy would have died, whether he committed the crime or not. If the accused was innocent, they would have sent an innocent man to die without even taking the time to dig deeper to uncover the truth, to which justice would not have been served. Additionally, prejudice and stereotyping creates a fear within those subjected to them. They start to think negatively and feel ashamed over something they have no control over.
Daja McLaurin Benton TA: Yiwen Dai Communications: 250 1 April, 2016 12 Angry Men Assessment After viewing the movie 12 Angry Men the group was able to implement the ideas of group think immediately during the start of the movie. Since the men briefly established a relationship from the time of witnessing the trial to start of deliberation n the empty room and reaching a unanimous decision, they found that all of the men initially achieved a verdict of guilty accept for juror 8. After this surprising decision the men began to show their true colors and distinguish how one may believe something and another juror may believe another. The group takes time in pleading individual opinions while deciding on the guilt or innocence of a young boy
You know that.” (Sergel 17). In the same way, this juror heavily believes his interpretation of what the kid is like, a criminal, he stereotypes the boy due to his own experiences. As a juror, people are allowed to point out what you may believe are some factors that need to be considered, which is why this can be a reason to consider jury
When asked why he voted not guilty, juror eight stated “Look, this boy has been kicked around all his life. You know---living in a slum, his mother dead since he was nine. He spent a year in and a half in an orphanage while his father served a jail term for forgery. That’s not a very good head start. He’s had a pretty terrible sixteen years.
As the play went on, Juror Eight started proving how the boy was innocent. In the end Juror Eight changed all the other juror’s minds, except for Juror Three’s. Juror Three ended up changing his vote, not because they changed his mind but because he gave into peer pressure. He still had his prejudice influenced decision, he only gave in because he didn't want it to be a hung jury. Another example, from the same play, is Juror Eight.
In his play Twelve Angry Men, Reginald Rose brings us back in time to 1957, to a jury room of a New York Court of Law where one man, Juror #8, confronts the rest of the jury to look at a homicide case without prejudice, and ultimately convinces Juror #2, a very soft-spoken man who at first had little say in the deliberation. Throughout the play, many of the jurors give convincing arguments that make one think about whether the boy is “guilty” or “not guilty.” Ultimately, one is convinced by ethos, logos, and pathos. We can see ethos, logos, and pathos having an effect on Juror #2 as he begins as a humble man and changes into someone brave at the end. Although all three modes play a part in convincing Juror #2, pathos was the most influential
His prejudice is clear when he says that “I’ve lived among ‘em all my life. You can’t believe a word they say” when speaking about the boy (16). Juror Ten’s prejudice causes him to disregard all of the facts that are presented to him by Juror Eight that can prove that the accused is not guilty. Juror 10 allows his prejudice to blind him of the truth. That is until he is called out by his fellow jurors.
Every human-being started out innocent, with a clear mind set, and from that view everything was simple; the line between right and wrong was clear, good and evil, equality and inequality, justice and injustice. However, as time went on this simple way of thinking changed, innocence was lost, and black and white became a million shades of gray. This common coming of age moment everyone experiences, whether it is for the better or worst, is shown within the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Therefore, the book represents the theme that children possess the ability to see people for who they are, without any prejudice or racism, because of their innocence and clear judgement, showing true knowledge of right and wrong, unless tainted by
Imagine getting that one dreaded letter in the mail, calling you to do the one thing you didn’t plan the week before your wedding, JURY DUTY. Reginald Rose wrote the play Twelve Angry Men for a television drama after he sat on a jury. The characters in this play are identified not by names but by numbers. Twelve men are confined to a deliberation room after the trial of a 19-year-old boy accused of stabbing and killing his father. Twelve Angry Men illustrates the many dangers of the jury system like, a biased jury, being left with questions, and feeling inconvenienced by jury duty.
Twelve Angry Men is in many ways a love letter to the American legal justice system. We find here eleven men, swayed to conclusions by prejudices, past experience, and short-sightedness, challenged by one man who holds himself and his peers to a higher standard of justice, demanding that this marginalized member of society be given his due process. We see the jurors struggle between the two, seemingly conflicting, purposes of a jury, to punish the guilty and to protect the innocent. It proves, however, that the logic of the American trial-by-jury system does work.
This quote shows that nearly all of the jurors had decided the boy’s fate, to be killed, before they could even be sure that they have no possible doubt. This is pointing out
With selfish attitudes like this, it was unlikely that Juror 10 would be interested in the truth behind the evidence and the case itself. Hence, his racial prejudice was important in determining his vote. He believes the boy is guilty, not because the facts point to it, but because of the boy’s ethnicity. It is clear that Rose has constructed Juror 10 as a means of identifying that prejudice,
This process continues throughout the course of the movie, and each juror’s biases is slowly revealed. Earlier through the movie, it is already justifiable to label juror 10 as a bigoted racist as he reveals strong racist tendencies against the defendant, stating his only reason for voting guilty is the boy’s ethnicity and background. . Another interesting aspect of this 1957 film is the “reverse prejudice” portrayed by juror
Therefore, he tried to make the trial go faster by voting with the side with the most votes. My family in the real world also had to go through inconvenience of the jury duty. My cousin had her first prom and my Aunt got called for jury duty. She couldn’t help her daughter do her hair, makeup, and get pictures. My moms friend also had a conflict with the jury duty.