In Aristophanes’ comedy, The Wasps, Conracleon criticizes the Athenian jury system by saying that the leaders of the court are corrupt and treat the jurors as slaves without them realizing. He does this by explaining how the court’s leaders have instituted an unequal pay between themselves and the jurors and emphasizing the overall corruption found in the courts. The greatest evidence for this argument can be found in Contracleon’s statements on pages 174 to 177 of the script. A specific point Contracleon emphasizes against the jury comes when he reveals how they are being duped into taking a much smaller pay than the archons and other high members in the court system. After Procleon attempts to add up a rough estimate all of the money Athens collects from its people upon his son’s request, he realizes that the pay for each of Athens’ “six thousand jurors” collectively “doesn’t even amount to ten percent” of what Athens makes (Pg. 175 Ln. 663). Contracleon then reveals to him that the Judiciary’s leaders have been and are holding out on the jurors and squandering the excess wealth elsewhere. He uses this information to point out the fact that this extremely large mass of jurors have been tricked by the same group of people for years without realizing it, and he stresses the fact that this is sill going to convey his view that the members of the jury have been and still are being used as cheap labor by the higher-ups of the courts. Contracleon then proceeds to further
When the plot is looked at through the Marxist lens, it becomes evident that the final verdict was affected because of the inability of the jurors to interact with each other due to class differences. On top of that, the boy was judged because of his class difference as well. The fourth juror makes known that he is wealthy, the fifth juror had a rough upbringing, and so on.Each juror seemed to be in a slightly different class, which they used this to define themselves. But, by the climax of the play when the eleventh juror responds with “...If you want to vote not guilty, then do it because you're convinced the man is not guilty - not because you've had enough. And if you think he's guilty, then vote that way, or don't you have the guts to
People's bias and predispositions can affect their opinion of different circumstances and different people. This is very evident throughout the play. After the first group vote and juror 8 votes not guilty, a discussion ensues. It is there that
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
ABSTRACT. This paper seeks to reject Socrates ' arguments against Thrasymachus ' account of the just and unjust in Plato 's Republic, and, in doing so, show that Thrasymachus ' account is in fact a coherent and plausible account of justice. I begin by describing the context of Socrates and Thrasymachus ' argument and what it would take for Socrates to overcome the Thrasymachian account. I then describe the Thrasymachian account and argue for its coherence. I attack the Socratic method of deconstructing Thrasymachus ' argument and show that Thrasymachus true argument remains unaddressed throughout the course of the their exploration and Republic as a whole. I conclude that Thrasymachus – although himself unaware – succeeds in proposing a plausible and defensible account of justice and that Socrates misleads both Thrasymachus and the reader to advance his own conception of justice.
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.
The Unjust even went as far as to state that Just was “ancient”. Although these traditions and ideas may be fading, they are not necessarily wrong. However, Unjust speech uses the fact that justice is ceasing to exist to imply that it is of no importance and does not necessitate a role on Greek society. The novelty of the Unjust speech allows it to flourish and triumph over the Just speech.
Was ancient Athens truly democratic? Some may say yes and some may say no. But the answer is yes. The reasons are these. “ Fear is our chief protection against this, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws.” (Doc. A) This was one of the many statements Thucydides gave during his speech for Pericles’s funeral. The quoted statement essentially meant that during Thucydides time (460 – 395 BCE) there were laws and government rules that had to be followed. Men, women, and even slaves obeyed the laws and government rules because they thought they made sense and had no other reason to disobey. In that case, they wouldn’t have the need to be angry at their neighbors if they were too loud. This document written by Aristotle is a great example
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
In the drama “Twelve Angry Men’’ by Reginald Rose, there are twelve juror’s debating their opinions on a murder case. Even though all jurors were present during court and heard the same thing each of them has their own presupposition on democracy by which they portray using various phrases and actions. Throughout the drama the jurors debate and rebuttal opinions on the case.
Reginald Rose’s text, Twelve Angry Men, follows the jury deliberation of a small murder case, with a cast of twelve jury men discussing the evidence presented in court to decide whether the defendant is innocent or guilty. Over the course of the play, led primarily by moral compass jury number 8, the verdict is changed from eleven to one to acquittal, as the men are persuaded and subject to constant distractions, prejudice, bullying, and discussions of unreliable witness testimonies and lawyers, thus exploring issues about the validity of the justice system in magnitude.
Juries exists in the criminal trial to listen to the case presented to them and, as a third, non-bias party, decide beyond reasonable doubt if the accused is guilty. For the use of a trial by juror to be effective, no bias should exists in the jurors judgments, the jurors should understand clearly their role and key legal terms, and the jury system should represent the communities standards and views whilst upholding the rights of the accused and society and remain cost and time effective.
Twelve Angry Men is a play that shows the workings of the American Justice System. The play is a celebration of the judicial system, and the main theme of the play is the triumph and the fragility of justice. The defendant’s fate is on the hand of the jurors as the man is accused of a serious offense which is murder. The purpose of the essay is to show the role that the plot, characters and the conflicts among the jurors support the theme of justice. Each juror had an initial verdict when the play begins but as events unfold and conflicts and agreements are reached the final and fair verdict is presented.
For instance, when Juror 4 said to everyone regarding about a baffling conflict, “I don't see any need for arguing like this. I think we ought to be able to behave like gentlemen." (16) This shows how Juror 4 is confident and determined to resolve the case and not play around. He tries very hard to calm many jurors down instead of letting it go and think of other things, this shows that he cares about the case. Moreover, Juror 8 also shows us that he cares about the case because he thinks and tries very hard to back up his claim so that is seems believable. To illustrate, when Juror 8 tries to retort back to a claim he thinks is false, “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. The Fifth Amendment. You've heard of it." (18) This quote reveals how he is confident with his knowledge and tries very hard to think of a rebuttal against Juror 2 argument. He thinks that a rebuttal against a false statement is very important, because he doesn’t want Juror 2 to convince other people with his statement. In another example, Juror 8 exhibits how he takes the trial seriously by investigating the case in his own time, “I’m just saying it’s possible ... I got it last night in a little junk shop around the corner from the boy's house. It cost two dollars." (24). In his own time, Juror 8 tries to find a similar knife that has been used in the murder, and successful bought one. This shows how he is willing to sacrifice his own time to find evidence for the case, it shows that he cares about the case and take the trial seriously. By taking the trial seriously, it reveals how both of the jurors is a fair person and wanted to give a fair trial and justice to the
Many of the jurors’ personal biases, often the causes of relational or ego/identity based conflict, constantly undermine the voting. Throughout the entire film, perhaps the most heated source of conflict arises from the group’s perception of that era’s underprivileged youth; they are stereotyped as, criminals, menaces to society, and rebels who don’t respect authority. Beginning of film,
In this paper, I will discuss a play by Athenian playwright Aristophanes, The Wasps. First, I shall give a brief overview of the The Wasps. Then, I will examine the courtroom scene of the play and argue that Philocleon is not an impartial juror. Next, I will discuss generational gap in Athens. Finally, I will conclude the paper with my outcome of the investigation of the conflict between Misocleon and Philocleon.