12 Angry Men: Flaw Of The Judicial System

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The American courtroom drama teleplay ’12 Angry Men’ by Reginald Rose is a classic and highlights the flaws of the judicial system. Published in 1954, the play is set in a jury room in New York. It focuses on the 12 members of the jury having to deliberate and try reach a unanimous decision that will determine the defendant’s fate. This essay will argue that Reginald Roses’ play will continue to be relevant due to its similarity of flaws and imperfections in the judicial system, which will be shown on various levels, and how in today’s society we still encounter these issues. This is displayed through the deliberate construction of character relationships and enduring themes of prejudice. The deliberately constructed character relationships undoubtably establish that …show more content…

This is shown through individual characters throughout the play. One example is Juror 10 who unmistakably expresses his emotions and feelings negatively towards the defendant’s and other fellow jurors. This can be observed through a quote from Juror 10, “they’re violent, they’re vicious, they’re ignorant and they will cut us up. That’s their intent to cut us up.” Rose uses language features to highlight predjudice as he uses impersonal pronouns such as “they” as a way to downgrade and separate the people who live in slums from himself and society. Rose uses short sentences such as “He’s got to burn!” to clearly reveal Juror 3’s negative emotions. He also shows this by using exclamtion marks to emphasize his point. The audience is positioned to view Juror 10 and Juror 3 as bias because they judge the defendant based off their own experiences and facts. Through these two quotes it is demonstrated that any juror can be prejudice as humans naturally have prejudgments. This proves a point of unreliability of jurors. Therefore, Rose purposefully presents the themes and issues of prejudice throughout his play by using individual

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