Comparing Justice In The Crucible And Twelve Angry Men

In both The Crucible and Twelve Angry Men the theme of fragility of justice is shown. Fair justice does not exist, when your life is put on the line because of accusations or because of your supposed actions, your faith is not decided by you, but by the decisions of others. Fragility of justice is the most evident theme in The Crucible and Twelve angry men because the faith of others is decided solely by a jury, with no consent to the accused.

In The Crucible Abigail Williams saved herself from punishment by concocting false stories. One accusation spiraled into a countless number of individuals being sentenced. Those accused of witchcraft, were condemned and hanged because of the claims of another liar. One’s entire life can be put at stake

The fate of the accused was in the hands of the court; a flawed system that adhered to a cruel theocracy to the wants of the accusers. The court officials always questioned how the supposed witches were causing harm to the victims, however; Abigail and her friends were not as questioned to the extent that the “witches” were. Indeed, there was doubt about whether these people were witches, but doubt only is not enough to condemn a person to death. Those in the crucible lives were dependent on the decision of a broken courtroom. The clergy wanted to rid Salem of witches and the devil, clouding their true judgment and adhering to the victim’s claims. In the clergy men’s eyes, it is better to murder someone who might be a witch, than let them live. With a biased court, either the odds are for you are against you. With an unfair trial, regardless of innocence, if you did not confess to witchcraft, you were

Juror three, for example, was dominated by emotions in regards to his relationship with his son. Juror three allows these emotions to play a role in his decision to vote guilty. If everyone had a past event that caused something like juror three, that boy would have been sentenced to death, without a second say. Juror three harbors an unconscious desire to vicariously punish his son by convicting the defendant, who is of similar age. These jurors had a preconceived notion of the boy and use that notion to harbor their decision to vote guilty. The fragility of it is that you can be put on a jury full of people who don’t care about your fate, and through unlucky means be accused of something that you didn’t do. People decide your faith, and you can’t expect those on the jury to react in a completely unbiased way. Juror seven likewise, does not care about the fate of the boy, dismissing the case in a blink of an eye, with his only desire was to attend the baseball game. Clearly unfit for jury duty, he was willing to sacrifice the life of a potentially innocent boy. It can’t be known whether a jury will consist of biased or unbiased people, those convicted have no control of such matters. However, it is known that justice can easily by subverted depending on a Juror’s