12 Angry Men Essay

‘It's very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And no matter where you run into it, prejudice obscures the truth.' [Juror 8, page 53] Perhaps this best sums up the basis of ‘Twelve Angry Men' by Reginald Rose. This play is about a young delinquent on trial for the murder of his abusive father. The jury must find him guilty if there is no reasonable doubt, and in turn, sentence him to death. ‘I don't envy your job. You are faced with a grave responsibility.' [Judge, page 1]

Reginald Rose’s ‘Twelve Angry Men’ is a play which displays the twelve individual jurors’ characteristics through the deliberation of a first degree murder case. Out of the twelve jurors, the 8th Juror shows an outstanding heroism exists in his individual bravery and truthfulness. At the start, the 8th Juror stands alone with his opposing view of the case to the other eleven jurors. Furthermore, he is depicted as a juror who definitely understands the jury system and defends it from the jurors who do not know it fully. At the end, he eventually successes to persuade the eleven other jurors and achieves a unanimous verdict, showing his

In the movie 12 Angry Men, the jurors are set in a hot jury room while they are trying to determine the verdict of a young man who is accused of committing a murder. The jurors all explain why they think the accused is guilty or not guilty. Throughout the movie they are debating back and forth and the reader begins to realize that even though the jurors should try to not let bias cloud their judgement, the majority of the jurors are blinded by bias. The viewer can also see that the jurors have their own distinguishable personalities. Their personalities intertwine with each other to demonstrate how the jury system is flawed, but that is what makes it work.

12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose is a twisting story where a son is accussed of stabbing his father to death. Twelve strangers are told to listen to this court case and are then stuck in a small, hot room where they are told to decide on a verdict, whether or not the kid lives or dies. The jury finally decides on the verdict of : Not Guilty. Three major facts that influence the juries agreement that the accussed is not guilty include doubts of the murder weapon, doubts of the old man’s testimony, and doubts of the lady across the street’s testimony.

The jurors are transformed by the process of deliberating. Eleven men voted guilty because of their prejudices, fears, laziness and insecurities, but they are eventually persuaded by reason to give up these limiting beliefs, to see the potential in the facts, and to find justice. The critical turning points in the jury votes occur, not when there is passion and anger, but when there is reasoned discussion, as the rational Juror 8 triumphs over the prejudices of his fellow jurors. The facts of the case do not change, but the jurors come to see the facts differently, and change by the process they go through. Despite the hostility and tension created in this process, the twelve men end up reconciled, and justice is done.

The play Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose demonstrates how biases can affect jury duty. A bias is a prejudice in favor of a particular group, person, or thing resulting in unfairness. This play gives readers an example of how biases influence the thoughts of many. Each juror is biased in their own way, whether it is race, age, or gender. These bias’ prevent people from seeing the truth to a side of a story. The twelve jurors must determine the fate of the eighteen year old boy without leading their biases in different interpretations of the evidence. Biased stereotypes tend to combine with the tendency to repent information proving evidence. More times than not the ones who are biased do not realize it. They proceed to input their conscience

Juror #8 is a calm and reasonable man which makes it easier for him to judge the case fairly and justly without any prejudice. Juror #8 never said he believed the defendant to be innocent he only wanted to take the role of being a juror seriously and talk about the case before a young boy is sent off to die. “I’m not trying to change your mind it’s just that we’re talking about somebody’s life here… we can’t decide in five minutes.” Because he brings no prejudice in the jury room he is able to look at the facts and carefully decide on his judgement. Juror #8 recognizes other peoples prejudice and tries not to convince them that the boy is innocent but to have them let go of that prejudice and decide based on the facts whether they truly believe the defendant is guilty or not. Rose uses both juror

Reginald Rose’s play ‘12 Angry Men’ entirely takes place in a small New York City jury room where 12 male jurors have convened to decide the verdict in a homicide case. The verdict of this case will decide if a young boy will be charged with murdering his father, with a switchblade knife, on the first degree. The film shows us nothing of the trial itself except for the judge 's perfunctory, almost bored, charge to the jury where he reminds them that they must base their unanimous decision of “guilty” or “not guilty” on whether or not there is “reasonable doubt” in their minds as to the guilt of the accused. His tone of voice indicates the verdict is a foregone conclusion. We hear neither prosecutor nor defense attorney, and learn of the

Twelve Angry Men is a very interesting play about an unfortunate young man, who was convicted of killing his dad. The worst part was, the young man was only nineteen, and his life was just starting. The jurors listened to all the evidence, then came the hard part, making the decision: guilty, or innocent. Eleven jurors said guilty and only one said innocent. There was a lot of peer pressure involved. I decided to write about different peer pressures three of the jurors used.

One common theme in 12 Angry Men is prejudice affecting a jury. In the play, a boy is arrested and placed on trial for the murder of his father. Due to prejudice, most of the jurors immediately think he is guilty because of his race and where he is from. 12 Angry Men truly exhibits what the 1950s justice system looked like. Through the storyline, prejudice is seen as a way of using stereotypes to explain how people behave.

12 Angry Men was a television drama written by Reginald Rose in 1954, afterwards it was transferred into a movie which was directed by Sidney Lurmet and finally this movie won Academy Award in the year, 1957 (Evirgen, 2009). The whole drama was based on the murder trial in which 18 years old boy was taken into consideration for murdering his father. The play is about a jury in which 12 individuals from different backgrounds given the tasks to decide whether the boy is guilty or not. This play represents the perfect picture of how people who are divided into groups or teams go through different situation before reaching to the common conclusion (Hackley, 2007). With the help of this play, individuals can learn the workings conditions of the

The defendant and the victim was a son and a father respectively. Nonetheless, the father abused the son consistently. Juror Eight stated that the defendant “‘has been hit so many times in his life that violence is practically a normal state of affairs for him.’” (Rose 17).

“Attribution theory deals with how the social perceiver uses information to arrive at causal explanations for events. It examines what information is gathered and how it is combined to form a causal judgment” (Fiske, & Taylor, 1991). The movie, 12 Angry Men, demonstrates both the external as well as the internal attributions of some jurors. Where Juror no. 8 emphasizes on how the boy was treated by giving the background of his life and not something inherent about the boy and his character shows the external attributes. Juror no. 3 who has the most complex personality has the notion that kids today do not have any respect or sense of morality. Also, Juror no. 10 has the belief that the slum children belong to a particular minority group which

The way one person treats another is often a direct reflection of how they view themselves. People with poor self-images are often quick to judge, demean, belittle, and rebuke others for their mistakes, shortcomings and flaws, simply out of spite or to protect their own reputation. This is true even in the 1957 MGM film Twelve Angry Men, where eleven of the twelve jurors attempt to convict a young man not based off of sound evidence, but off of personal prejudice and self-righteousness alone. It was the leadership of the eighth juror, however, that convinced the other jurors to set aside their personal biases to acquit the young man accused of killing his father. In the film, the eighth juror, Mr. Davis, analyzes the self-images of the other eleven jurors and displays the core values of humility, patience and mercy in order to lead the group to the consensus that the accused is not guilty.

The classic film 12 Angry Men details the power of group dynamics which can lead to complacency, conformity, and lack of clarity in decision-making. Many concepts associated with organizational behavior are epitomized in the film. The main character – played by Henry Fonda and referred to Juror 8 and Davis at the end of the movie – is the only person who wants to at least consider the innocence of the accused. The rest of the jurors have conformed to the opinion of the most dominant, boisterous, and direct members of the group, who essentially serve as leaders and hold that the accused is guilty. It becomes evident throughout the rest of the movie that many of the jurors who agree to conform to the wants of the most outspoken and aggressive members have hesitations about their decision, which highlights the power of conformity and group think (Robbins et al., 2013).