Light Vs. Darkness In Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men

You would imagine that the United States’ judicial system would be free of bias when it comes to the trials presented. This is not the case in Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men. Diegesis for Rose’s play consists of twelve men on a jury who have to deliberate whether to convict a sixteen-year-old boy who is suspected of killing his father. The complete opposite of what is desired is portrayed in the play, as it is human nature to pass at least somewhat judgement in order to come to a conclusion, but is gone to an extreme with the biases. Rose utilizes characterization and the archetypal representation of light vs. darkness to convey that prejudice will always exist and affect decisions that humans make within the play of Twelve Angry Men, via the organic unity of character backgrounds and the character’s interactions between one another. In this play, the archetype of light vs. darkness is heavily used, where light would represent fairness and equality whereas the

Juror Three’s past experience with his father and how he “used to call him sir” reflects his beliefs on how a boy should treat their father (Rose 17). Not only that, but Juror Three’s relationship with his own son parallels his views onto the defendant of the case, which can clearly be seen since “When he was sixteen [they] had a battle. He hit [Juror Three] right in the face” (Rose 18). It being quite apparent how he has clouded judgment since he mirrors the emotions of his own “rotten kid”, onto the sixteen-year-boy on trial (Rose 18). Juror Three’s character background being the reason why he believes “Everyone knows this kid is guilty. He’s got to burn. We’re letting him slip through our fingers”, and why he has an intense passion to convict the defendant of murdering his father (Rose