The Characteristics Of Characters In Twelve Angry Men

Recently in my AP English class, we watched The film “Twelve Angry Men”. The film was unique in the fact that it only had one setting, the Jury Room. The film showed no one else but the jurors and the warden, who all remained completely nameless throughout the entire movie and we're only identified by their juror numbers. The jurors were drastically different which I believe added more diversity and made the plot more complex and intriguing to the audience. I don't believe the film had a specific intended audience, I believe that this show can be appreciated by all audiences because it shows that reasonable doubt is a much easier state of mind then certainty.

* When the 12 person jury meets in the room to vote on a guilty or non-guilty verdict, the method used to vote was 1st based on a majority decision-making process where those would raise their hands for guilty and a non-guilty verdict. Once the results were in and 11 voted guilty and 1 voting not guilty. Based on the movie, 11 members of the jury voted guilty while 1 juror voted non-guilty. The 1 non-guilty, disrupted the dynamics of everyone else’s vote; which leads to a major conflict. They now needed to illustrate the pros and cons of both guilty and non-guilty parties.

guilty because he had a reasonable doubt in his mind and he listened to everyone's opinions,

“ 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,

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

Juror eight is an unbiased man only seeking justice and fairness from this trial. He shows this when he says “I think maybe we owe him a few words. That’s all.” Furthermore, juror eight displays his prejudiced personality through the use of this quote. However, other characters, such as juror three, are appalled by juror eight’s beliefs and only see that the boy is undoubtedly guilty because of his criminal record and testimonies against him.

First, Juror 8 stood his ground. In the beginning the Foreman called for a vote and eleven men raised their hand for guilty while Juror 8 raised his hand for not guilty. “There were eleven votes for guilty. It's not so easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.” said Juror 8 for justifying his actions. Later, when the other jurors were trying to convince Juror 8, he was quick with his arguments. To Juror 2 he said, “Nobody has to prove otherwise. The burden of proof is on the prosecution. The defendant doesn’t have to open his mouth. That’s in the constitution. You’ve heard of it.” To Juror 10 he said, “You don’t believe the boy. How come you believe the woman? She’s one of “them” too, isn’t she?” When Juror 6 brought up the motive for the murder, Juror 8 remarked with, “…I

He is polite and makes a point of speaking with proper English grammar. He is the fourth to ultimately vote not guilty

It’s impressive how he stood alone to vote ‘not guilty’ at the start. Juror 5: (Nods in agreement) Yes, I don’t think I could’ve done that with my shy and timid nature. (Sighs)

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.’

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].

“I just think he’s guilty. I thought it was obvious. I mean nobody proved otherwise. ”- these words of juror 2 says that he has difficulty maintain his own opinion.

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

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.”

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,