Analysis Of 12 Angry Men

Similarly ,In Twelve Angry Men Juror 8 is a smart and moral juror who is willing to stand against all the other jurors for what he thinks is right. He is the main protagonist who believes a boy accused with murdering his father deserves a discussion prior to a guilty verdict. Although all the other jurors initially voted guilty, juror 8 believed that the jurors should not “send a boy off to die without talking about it first”(Juror 8, 12). Throughout the play Juror 8 combats the pressure from the other Jurors to just vote guilty and manages to convince his fellow Jurors one by one that there in fact is “reasonable doubt”(Judge, 6) and convinces them to arrive at a “not guilty”(Juror 3, 72) verdict. Reginald Rose extols Juror 8’s pursuit of justice through his success. Not only did Juror 8 stand by his principles and have the courage to stand against all the other Jurors, he also had the wits to convince his fellow jurors to change their verdict. Through these actions Juror 8 brings justice to the courts of New York city saving the life of a young boy.

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

Indeed, Juror 3 and 8 have individual outlooks on the case, but I believe that even between these two diverse people, there are is one strong similarity, and that would have to be persistency. In the whole play, the strongest collisions of disputes were between Juror 3 and 8. Their conflicting perspectives and powerful determinations were what drove the decision of the fate of the accused. In general, these two jurors have strong point of views on how the boy should be treated and why. Even with this similarity, they still use their persistency in diverse

The film uses juror three to demonstrate how past experiences can influence ones prejudice in decision making. Juror 3, who has a prejudice against the accused, and thinks the kid is under-privileged and doesn’t deserve a second chance, which is reason enough for him to conclude the accused is guilty. As the discussion continues as to the verdict of the trial, juror three grows frustrated and angrily refutes, “What is this? Love your under- privileged bother week or something? (12 Angry Men). Due to his past experiences with young men, he is ready to sentence the defendant to death with weak circumstantial evidence, grows angry as the other jurors question what he refers to as “facts” and claims “You can’t refute facts” (12 Angry Men) As all the Jurors except juror twelve get more and more frustrated by the slowed process, juror three begins to see through his prejudice, and disperses the other jurors interruptions by saying “Be quiet, we’ll all get a turn”(12 Angry Men). It finally becomes clear, he sees similarities with his son he had a falling out with several years ago, and puts this prejudice aside and excepts that the evidence is too circumstantial to convict a kid for murder, and sentence him to death.

Unlike Juror 3 Juror 8 is open and even welcomes others’ opinions. He was the only one to vote not guilty at the beginning of 12 Angry Men. He was not an appointed leader and throughout the course of this film he develops into an emergent leader. Juror 8 uses democratic leadership as he focuses on serving the needs of someone else and pointing out the severity of the issue they are deciding on and that a life is at stake. A democratic leader “understand(s) that these challenges are being made to present all sides of the issue and arrive at a better answer” (Kraemer, 2011). Juror 8 wants people to talk it through and make sure they have properly evaluated every side of the reason for being guilty or innocent and a just decision is made. He used

In Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men there is a clear juror whom swayed the others and directly expressed his ideas. He is a “gentle man...who wants justice to be done.” Juror no.8 is the hero as his initial choice to vote not guilty locks in the boy's fate of escaping a life of prison and punishment; not excluding his persuasiveness and ideology of the morality of the other jurors. Juror no.8 single handedly voted against the grain and convinced other jurors of his logical reasons ‘it’s not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy of to die before talking about it first’. It was heroic of him to stand out against the others and the dramatic conclusion greatly attributed to his significant factor as the vote sway from 11-1 guilty to 12-0 for not guilty. Juror no.8 helped conveyed to the other jurors the boy's innocence. Persuading jurors in a chill mannerism whist jurors 3 and 10 were angry and impatient. Over the case juror no.8 was calm and reviewed the evidence taken from the prosecution and it's flaws. Juror no.8 constantly reviewed the evidence with other jurors presenting logical

It was interesting to see the large differences in each juror’s lives. Every jury is eclectic because it is made up of very different people with very different family lives. For example, Juror #3 seems to be a well educated and well off man as he was wearing suspenders and a dress shirt. However, Juror #7 was a young man who seemed fairly uneducated and fairly poor because he dressed in a sweatsuit and used improper language. It was very interesting to see these different personalities clash. In the beginning when the men are all on the same page that the defendant is guilty except one, the men generally more relaxed (except for Juror #3).However, as more of the men start to explain their reasonings for seeing reasonable doubt, tension is prevalent in the room. The men who vote guilty are rallying up against the people who voted not guilty. The feeling of the room switches again as most jurors decide the defendant is guilty. That being said, Juror #3 creates a lot of tension in the room throughout the film due to the the fact that he yells at anyone who disagrees with him because he is unwilling to hear their opinions. For example, while one man is explaining why he thinks there is reasonable doubt, juror #3 decides to start a game of tic tac toe. This is very interesting because he is ready to send the defendant to his deathbed

In ‘Twelve Angry Men’, written by Reginald Rose, juror three sees his son as the alleged and cannot wait to punish him, however, the prejudice he has against the alleged criminal urges juror three to take action as quickly as possible and votes a persistent ‘guilty’ verdict. Throughout the play, juror three is seen as an old, bitter man who makes his decisions based on his son and not his own conscience. When he is a part of the jury, he has the chance to be fair and reasonable, which he passes up the opportunity. He “[feels] that knife going in” when he talks about his son and how he finds a similarity in both the

Initially, Juror 8 stands alone during the first vote. For clarification, he doesn’t cower and change his initial vote when he notices that all the other people in the room are against him. Eight didn’t succumb to peer pressure and made it his duty to ensure everyone else sees what he does. Second, Juror 5 changed his vote from “guilty” to “not guilty” because he realised how much the accused has in common with his own upbringing. For instance, both of them grew up in the slums and were often negatively stereotyped. People tend to agree with others if they find something that they have in common. Lastly, Juror 11 called Juror 7 out for misusing his freedoms as an American citizen and his responsibilities as a Juror of the court. Being that Juror Seven only changed his vote because he had tickets to a play, Juror 11 was enraged, mainly because not everyone has the same opportunities as they do at the moment. When Juror 11 lived in Europe, he never had opportunities like this so he was taking it seriously, especially because the life of someone else was in jeopardy. Quite often literature mirrors real life, as is the case with the recent shooting in Las Vegas when complete strangers risked their own safety or put their own lives on hold to help when others were in

He plays the role of 'appointed leader', or the individual who is assigned the leader position from the onset. A simple man who clearly does not understand the complexity of the task that lies before him but is trying to do everything not to let anyone else find this out. He appears at ease only once during the film ' when he talks about football. He has the misfortune to be selected Foreman of the jury ' a task he clearly does not enjoy. Juror #2 is a small, quite man who is clearly unaccustomed to giving his own opinion much less to expecting his views to be of any importance. In his subdued 'observer' and meek 'information giver' role, No. 2 apparently finds comfort in his job ' he is an accountant. Juror # 3 is probably the most complex personality in the film. He starts off like a pleasant self-made successful businessman, analyzing the case impartially, explaining the arguments well and is reasonably self-assured. As time goes on he becomes more and more passionate exploding in disbelieving anger and seems somehow to be personally involved with the case. His motivation for behaving as he does is revealed when he discloses that he's not on good terms with his own son. Illusions to his animosity toward youth were made when he says that kids today have no respect and that he has not see his son in over a decade. No.3 namely plays the 'aggressive', 'dominator' and 'blocker' roles. His personal baggage with his own son 'blocked' or

This can be easily identified in the play when the 8th Juror voted ‘not guilty’, opposing the other eleven jurors who voted for ‘guilty’. This instantly created antagonism from many of the other jurors such as the 3rd Juror who stated ‘Listen, there are still eleven of use in here who think he’s guilty.’[p.g 25], and the 7th Juror who exclaimed ‘What do you think you’re going to accomplish? You’re not changing anybody’s mind.’ [p.g 25].

Juror 4 is able to remain calm and composed throughout the most stressful of situations. While Juror 10 exhibits racial outbursts; “They get drunk”, “That's the way they are!”, “VIOLENT!”, “These people are dangerous. They're wild. Listen to me. Listen.” Juror 4 sat through this entire scene without saying a word. It is only until Juror 10’s monologue is finished that Juror 4 speaks, calmly asking Juror 10 to “Shut [his] filthy mouth.” Juror 4 never discredits or implies anything towards the defendant and is always careful of what he says. After Juror 10’s tirade, Juror 4 tries to soften the impact created by 10; “Slums are potential breeding grounds for criminals.” He never attacks or hypes the situation at hand. He draws around ‘potential’ possibilities. Juror 4 initially had his doubts at the start of the case but was the only character that overcame his predisposition based on the analysis of facts and evidence. Rose’s character and only this character had the intelligence, confidence and persistence to keep his head in the tense moment Juror 10 created.

The first juror was the foreman. He was the task leader of the group, taking initiative to sit the people down, numbering them, and telling the jurors when they could go on breaks. This juror goes over the process and rules the men will be using, and sets up the first voting. He also tries to keep the jurors on task and organized. Juror 2 is anxious man. This juror was easily persuaded to change his opinion about the case and tended to have the same opinion of the person who spoke before him. He played the role of a tension releaser which was seen when he offered the men cough drops in tense situations. Juror 3 is temperamental, opinionated, strong, loud, biased, stubborn and intolerable man. This man does not want to hear the opinions of the other jurors and is sure that the boy is guilty. He plays the part of the central negative in the group. When he doesn’t like what other people are saying he begins to yell and challenges that person speaking. He began to be dominating and blocking towards the end. Even though he did not have a statement to backup his vote, he stood alone just because he didn’t want to be proved wrong. His own problems with his son abandoning him also

Taking other juror's characters into consideration, Jury number 2 and Jury number 12 are a complete contrast to Jury number 8. They both are hesitant in taking their stance. Especially Jury number 12 repeatedly changes his decision depending on what the aggressive members were wanting him to say. Jury number 3 was the most aggressive of all the 12 men. There was something not-so-appealing-yet-very-interesting about his personality. He was so single-minded that he not only disagreed to what others said, but was also willing to ask them to shut up and just say “guilty.” His aggressive behavior gives us a reason to think that he might have a bad relation with his son, which he actually had and reveals the story at the end. Jury number 7 has a completely different approach. He wants the discussions to end soon because he has got more important things to do in his life rather than having a look at the evidence's that could help to save someone's life. According to Benne and Sheats Functional Group Goals, Jury number 7 is an example of a deserter. Deserter is a person who withdraws from the group; appears “above it all” and bored or annoyed with the discussion; remains aloof or stops contributing ( Engleberg and Wynn 55). A deserter can also be called a self centered person. Jury number 8 seems an initiator-contributor, who proposes ideas and suggestions; provides direction for the group; gets the group

According the five Methods for Influencing Other Group Members - use of reason, assertiveness, coalition building, higher values, and bargaining - when Juror Eight said: “we are talking about somebody life here, we can’t just decide within five minutes, suppose we are wrong”, he used the youth human-being life’s important and the danger of a false decision as good reasons to force other jurors in analyzing the facts carefully. He then talks about the boy’s backgrounds for appealing to logic and rational thinking of other jurors. Juror Three was overt prejudice, hostility, and used “assertiveness” to influence the other ten jurors of jury provided an antagonist for juror Eight. Juror eight used “coalition building” method to seek alignment with other group members. He never says that he believes the defendant is innocent but his mantra throughout the movie was “it’s possible!” referring to the reasonable doubt, which he convinced others’ thought. Juror Eight continued to appeal other eleven juror’s higher values by repeatedly reinforcing their moral and judicial obligation to convict only if there was no reasonable doubt. He challenged each juror to look at the facts more thoughtfully. “Bargaining” is offering an instrument exchange. Juror 8 used this method when he said: “I want to call for another vote… If there are 11 votes for guilty, I won’t stand alone… But if anyone votes not guilty, we stay here and talk it out.”