In Reginald Rose’s play “Twelve Angry Men”, a group of jurors must determine the innocence or guilt of a boy accused of murdering his father. The jurors display a medley of demeanors, many of them armed with their own prejudices and motivations. In the case of juror eleven, his motivation is his dedication to the task at hand.
While most jurors are motivated by an external cause, juror eleven tends to focus solely on the assigned task. Throughout the course of the play the characters stray from the point on numerous occasions. Juror eleven only gets off topic during mundane matters. Beyond that, he’s usually the one directing the others toward what’s really important. After juror three’s violent outburst, juror eleven gently but firmly reminds everyone why they’re there: It is their collective responsibility to decide on a verdict, and there’s no
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(44) In addition to that, he makes an offhanded remark that reflects how he feels about the others way of handling things.“We can’t even agree about whether or not the window should be open.” Though his remark could be interpreted as frustration of a hung jury, it also alludes to the way he thinks they’re butchering their duty. During the entirety of the play, juror eleven has been a relatively neutral character that shied away from conflict. This is the only instance where he takes on a negative tone. Their duty is important to him. (61) Another example of his devotion to finding the truth is demonstrated amidst the chaos of Act 2. “I always thought that a man was entitled to have unpopular opinions in this country. This is the reason I came here. I wanted to have the right to disagree.” (28) Although the point he was trying to make was quickly dismissed by juror three, it shows that juror eleven deeply cares about justice, and what it stands
The first vote ended with eleven men voting guilty and one man not guilty. We soon learn that several of the men voted guilty since the boy had a rough background not because of the facts they were presented with. Although numerous jurors did make racist or prejudice comments, juror ten and juror three seemed to be especially judgmental of certain types of people. Juror three happened to be intolerant of young men and stereotyped them due to an incident that happened to his son. In addition, the third juror began to become somewhat emotional talking about his son, showing his past experience may cloud his judgment. Juror ten who considered all people from the slums “those people” was clearly prejudiced against people from a different social background. Also, Juror ten stated in the beginning of the play “You 're not going to tell us that we 're supposed to believe that kid, knowing what he is. Listen, I 've lived among 'em all my life. You can 't believe a word they say. I mean, they 're born liars.” Juror ten did not respect people from the slums and believed them to all act the same. As a result, Juror ten believed that listening to the facts of the case were pointless. For this reason, the tenth juror already knew how “those people” acted and knew for sure the boy was not innocent. Even juror four mentioned just how the slums are a “breeding ground
Juror #11: believes that the knife is very important to the case. Starts to change his mind, wants to dig deeper in the case changed his vote at the end and doesn’t think that the boy is capable of murdering his father.
This essay will compare and contrast the protagonist/antagonist's relationship with each other and the other jurors in the play and in the movie versions of Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men. There aren't any changes made to the key part of the story, but yet the minor changes made in making the movie adaptation produce a different picture than what one imagines when reading the drama in the form of a play. First off, the settings in the movie are a great deal more fleshed out. In the play, the scene begins with the jurors regarding the judge's final statements concerning the case in the courtroom and then walking out into the jury room. In the movie, the audience is placed in the role of the invisible casual observer, who for perhaps the first 5 minutes of the movie, walks throughout the court building passing other court rooms, lawyers, defendants, security officers, elevators, etc.
These two jurors are almost the plain opposite of each other. Juror 3 appears to be a very intolerant man accustomed of forcing his wishes and views upon others. On the other hand, Juror 8 is an honest man who keeps an open mind for both evidence and reasonable doubt. Since these two people are indeed very different, they both have singular thoughts relating to the murder case. Juror 8 is a man who is loyal to justice. In the beginning of the play, he was the only one to vote ‘not guilty’ the first time the twelve men called a vote. Although his personality is reflected on being a quiet, thoughtful, gentle man, he is still a very persistent person who will fight for justice to be done. Juror 8 is a convincing man who presents his arguments well, but can also be seen as manipulative. An example would be when he kept provoking Juror 3 until he finally said “I’m going to kill you" to Juror 8. He did this because he wanted to prove that saying "I’ll kill you" doesn’t necessarily mean that Juror 3 was actually going to kill him. Juror 3 is a totally different character. He is a stubborn man who can be detected with a streak of sad...
Juror number eight is the main protagonist, he also a reserved with his thoughts, yet very strategic with them. He is the defender of the down trodden victim. He has a calm rational approach to everything and he reveals the gaps in the testimonies placed against the defendant. These examples would be; that the old man couldn’t have seen the boy run out of the house, as the old man had a limp and therefore could not make it to the door in time. The old lady across the road could have never saw the boy stab his father, due to she wasn’t wearing her glasses and it was pitch black. Number eight is a man that s...
Guilty or not guilty? This the key question during the murder trial of a young man accused of fatally stabbing his father. The play 12 Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, introduces to the audience twelve members of a jury made up of contrasting men from various backgrounds. One of the most critical elements of the play is how the personalities and experiences of these men influence their initial majority vote of guilty. Three of the most influential members include juror #3, juror #10, and juror #11. Their past experiences and personal bias determine their thoughts and opinions on the case. Therefore, how a person feels inside is reflected in his/her thoughts, opinions, and behavior.
In the United States court of law, the defendant is innocent until proven guilty. The people tasked with determining which of the two categories a defendant falls under is a jury of his or her peers. In Reginald Rose’s thrilling play, 12 Angry Men, the many aspects of America's jury system are closely examined revealing not only flaws but merits as well. The diverse personalities and backgrounds of the different jurors illustrate a picture of the jury room in vivid detail and reveal to the reader that past the apparent conflict is a system that works and has proven efficient for many decades. The contrasting viewpoints, dissimilar backgrounds, and random selection of the jury system together compliments and further proves its effectiveness. As a result, today's jury system may be flawed but the ways it benefits people on trial outweighs the negative as proven in 12 Angry Men.
Juror 7, a fast-talking salesman, wants the jury to reach a decision quickly because he wishes to attend a baseball game that evening. Juror 8 (Mr. Davis), a complex and thoughtful architect, casts the only contrary vote, declaring that he has doubts about the case and wants to give the boy, who has had a challenging life in the ghetto, a fair hearing. Juror 9, an elderly and frail man to whom the jurors have paid little attention to points out the conflicts in the prosecution's version of events on the night of the murder, and he is especially convincing when he notes problems with the testimony of a prosecution witness who is also elderly. The same man, along with Mr. Davis, manages to sway Jurors 5 and 11 to their side, for a total of four “not guilty” verdicts. Consequently, Juror 3 harasses Juror 11, an Eastern European refugee, for changing his mind. Juror 10, about sixty years old and the owner of a garage, sternly affirms that Mr. Davis is a weak “bleeding heart” before beginning a rant against slum
In 12 Angry Men there were a lot of arguments about whether the victim was guilty or not guilty for killing his father. Those arguments sparked a conflict with juror number 10 and juror number 8. Several times the 10th juror got up out of his seat and wanted to give the 8th a piece of his mind, but was always stopped but the other jury members. In the end, juror 10 lost it and was cursing, yelling letting all of the hate out that he had with all of the other jury members. ”The 10th juror
The movie 12 angry men is about twelve jurors who are deliberating a case of a young Puerto Rican male who is accused of murdering his father. The young man has a history of getting into trouble and an alibi that is not completely solid, as well as two eye witnesses who claimed to have seen the crime being committed. With this evidence it is thought to be decided the young man accused of the crime committed it, and would be put to death. The jurors listen to the evidence presented by the prosecutor and the young mans’ attorney. They enter the jury room, all but one is convinced that he is guilty. There are several different personalities on this jury team; the task-oriented jury foreman, a shy business man, a man interested more in baseball,
In this single moment of clarity, he is convinced that the old man is distorting the truth. He says “... He was dragging his left leg and trying to hide it because he was ashamed. I think I know him better than anyone here. This is a quiet, frightened, insignificant old man who has been nothing all his life, who has never had recognition… This is very important. It would be so hard for him to recede into the background…”(page 36) Sharing this argument, juror number nine shifts the direction of the discussion. No longer is he speaking about facts and evidence, but about an emotional connection to an old man who wants to feel important for once in his life. Although he is just assuming this based off of context clues, he manages to affect the other jurors. He manages to question the validity of the old man's testimony by connecting with him at a personal level, and for the most part it's
The jury system in the United States has served the country well for a long time, but it should not decide cases for the justice system in the future. While on the outside it may seem to be an efficient system, the truth is that it possesses a number of flaws that makes it unfit for the justice system. Reginald Rose’s short story, Twelve Angry Men, displays the problems with this system through the jury of a boy accused of murdering his own father. As the jurors discussed about the boy’s outcome, it grew rather obvious to the readers that there were many defects in the current jury structure, which caused unfairness within the boy’s trial. America should not continue to use the current jury system, because a juror’s judgement may be affected
Juror 10, uses a condescending term such as, “them” to indicate the defendant and the society he belongs in. Juror 8 wants to prove his point, which reveals reverse discrimination. He cautions the other jurors to take their roles very serious. On page 15, Juror 8 sympathizes with the defendant by saying “Look—this boy’s been kicked around all his life… He’s a tough angry kid. You know why slums get this way? Because we knock ’em over the head once a day, everyday. I think we owe him a few words. That’s all.” Juror 8 votes not guilty because he commiserates with the defendant. Many of the jurors judge each other, based on how they look or how much money they make. This prejudice is revealed when Juror 3 comments on Juror 4’s clothing on page 11 and says “Ask him to hire you. He’s rich. Look at that suit!” In the end, all of the jurors are able to overcome prejudice. At the beginning of the play, most jurors believed their stereotypes to be facts. As they begin to analyze the evidence, the jurors maintain their prejudice and stand firm. However, as they get to know each other, they are compelled to look back at their past prejudices and consider the choices they have
Juror ten is perceived throughout the play as a nuisance. The reason he causes a plethora of conflict is that of his prejudiced views on the
The clashing of the different personalities of jurors proved to be a major source of the conflict in the play. Even though the jurors in the play 12 angry men with their different personalities and viewpoints had many quarrels throughout the trial, they ended coming together and agreeing to acquit the boy of his crimes. This shows that even though our individual personalities and those of others around us are different, we can still come together and actively open ourselves to the different perspectives and ideas to achieve something important.