Life is in their hands, death is on their minds. The movie Twelve Angry Men consists of
twelve characters playing as jury members in an alleged murder case. Throughout the movie
these twelve characters show a wide variety of characteristics such as, being impatient,
aggressiveness, and anger. When watching this movie, one quickly realizes why it is called
Twelve Angry Men. Almost all twelve characters showed the characteristics previously stated.
Although, there were five characters in most people’s opinions, that showed other characteristics
that are believed to be important. In this movie, the characteristics that are important are
patience, kindness, and understanding.
The main character of the movie is Mr. Davis, or also known as jury member number
eight. In the beginning of the movie, jury member number one asks all the jurors to cast a vote
on whether or not they think the boy on trial is guilty, or not guilty. He also asks them to keep in
mind that the result of a guilty verdict would mean the boy would be killed. All of the men
except for one voted guilty. The one man who didn’t vote guilty was Mr.Davis. Immediately
after casting his vote he was under massive scrutiny for his decision. The now angry eleven other
jurors asked Mr. Davis why he chose not guilty. His response in most people’s opinion was quite
astounding. Mr. Davis simply said “I don’t know”. He continued to state “ It’s only one night, a
boy may die”. This statement is
“ Foreman: Okay, all of those voting guilty raise your hands.” (Act 1) All the hands except juror eight’s hand goes up voting guilty therefore it made the vote eight to one. In this act juror seven had stated “ Let’s vote now. Who knows, maybe we can all go home.” With this being said, from the beginning juror seven doesn't want to be there and he's in a rush to get home,
He is polite and makes a point of speaking with proper English grammar. He is the fourth to ultimately vote not guilty
However, not many jurors think the way he does and how he approaches the trial. In act 1 of the trial, Juror 8 claims “There were eleven votes for ‘guilty.’
He completely ignored the severity of this court case. This claim is also supported by Juror 7 saying “Goddamn waste of time” (Rose 8). This comment shows how little this case means to him and the fact that he does not care if the boy lives or not. He only wants to do what he desires, which is to get into the game. This event also shows that he is ignoring the presumption of innocence because if he was following the presumption of innocence he would have to be open to all the evidence from the case.
In the reply, he said “The boy yelled that’s enough for him”. This argument doesn’t make sense and shows his prejudice. When juror 8 said,”supposing he really did hear it? This phrase: how many times has each of you used it? Probably hundreds.
killer and the boy’s record. He mentions these things to try and convince the other jurors that they
(Rose 2 pg 28) Which is pretty much self explanatory. Juror 8 kept pushing on, acknowledging the fact that this 19 year old boy didn’t grow up the way a child should that his mother died when he was just nine years old and his father beat him his whole life. He’s sympathetic towards the boy and just wants justice to be rightfully
On page 12 of Twelve Angry Men, “There were 11 votes for “guilty”. It’s not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.” If there wasn’t a unanimous vote, the
He then starts with the testimony of the old man saying he heard the boy say, “I am going to kill you.” He proves it wrong by saying the el train was going by and you cannot hear yourself think. He also points out that since he is slow he could not have gotten upstairs so quickly. Then fives agrees with eight and nine so the vote is now ten to three in favor of guilty.
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.”
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
The very last person to change his vote is Juror Number 3. Throughout the play, he says something and then says the complete opposite. An example is the argument of how long the old man had said it took the old man to get to the front door to see the boy run down the stairs, “he said twenty,” (Rose, 18). Juror Number 3 then says a couple lines later, “He’s an old man. You saw him. Half the time he was confused. How could he be positive about anything?” (Rose, 18). He did that numerous times in the play. This also leads into why none of his arguments are valid. He contradicts himself and argues subjectively. He has a prejudice against teenagers because his son left him after he had emotionally and physically abused him, yet he thought he was doing the right thing. He is so focused on his personal situation that he has a hard time making an
guilty because he had a reasonable doubt in his mind and he listened to everyone's opinions,
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].
Another major source of conflict is the other jurors’ disinterested approach to the trial. Almost every juror approaches Juror #8’s insistence on a not guilty vote with avoidance. They care little about the case and do not grasp its gravity,