12 Angry Men

Introduction, Vision, and Influence Methods:

The play “12 Angry Men” takes place in the New York City Court of Law in 1957. These 12 jurors, are to carefully and slowly consider and discuss in a first degree murder trial. An 18-year-old boy was accused of stabbing his own father in the heart, resulting in an automatic death sentence. Henry Fonda, who plays Davis in the play, is the leader. During their first vote, he was the only juror to not raise his hand to plead the boy guilty. He claims that the boy may indeed not be guilty, in which he spends the entire play backing up the evidence with his own considerations. In the likelihood that he did not raise his hand to plead the boy guilty, he then became an emerged leader. Davis believes that

Davis uses tactics such as trying to understand each juror and calmly explaining to them that there is a possibility of coincidences and inconsistencies; thus he individually asks each juror what they thought was the breaking point about the case and proved every one of their facts otherwise. His vision is to just sit down and thoroughly discuss the case, since a boy’s life is practically on their hands right now. Davis explains his thoughts and opinions in the beginning after the first vote. He actually does do a good job explaining his visions, because he was one to explain and throughout the play, more and more jurors stood by his side. He is quite inspiring, because he really sticks to his point, and he does not let other’s comments and personal opinions bother him. He stays calm and focused on his points, thinking of a rebuttal for every ‘believable fact’ that is thrown at him. Davis uses his expert knowledge to achieve his vision. He does not care how long it takes to convince everyone that the boy may indeed not be guilty. He strongly believes that the 18-year-old boy is not guilty, and that is his motivation to keep

Intelligence uses verbal, perceptual and reasoning capabilities, self-confidence is about one’s certainties and skills to perceive what one thinks is right, determination is the belief and strong-will to get the job done, integrity is honesty and trustworthiness, and sociability is the leader’s inclination to seek out pleasant social relationships. These traits benefit him to be a leader in the group during the case, because he uses his intelligence to convince the other jurors that what they see as facts may not be facts at all. His self-confidence radiates as he is not scared to be the only one to not raise his hand to plead the boy guilty, in which some of the other jurors just want to get the case over with. Davis’s determination is strongly proven as he calmly and in a focused manner asks each juror why they believe the boy is guilty, in which he always has a rebuttal for every fact. The integrity that he shows is everywhere, because he is able to pull half the jurors to be on his side at one point, in which if the jurors did not believe him, he would not have supporters. Lastly, his sociability allows him to communicate with his fellow jurors and make them believe that the boy is not guilty of killing his own