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Signposts In Twelve Angry Men, By Reginald Rose

899 Words4 Pages

When reading the Twelve Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, the signposts help the reader understand the story more deeply and connect with the author's empathy and emotion. Three examples of signposts being mentioned are, tough questions, words of the wiser, and aha moments. In this play the defendant was known as guilty before trial or reasonable evidence was given. The jurors based their “evidence” solely on prejudice and bias throughout the story. With the jury of eleven biased men and one man willing to give some thought into the trial, how do you think the defendant felt through the trial? How do you think that he felt being accused of something he didn’t do? This is one of the big questions in Twelve Angry Men. Tough questions are seen …show more content…

Juror number three states “what’s the matter with you guys? You all know he’s guilty! He’s got to burn! You’re letting him slip through your fingers!(Rose 1957). This shows the reader that the bias of the jurors was solely based on the racist thoughts they had pretrial. An interesting part to think about from this play is the fact that by the end of the story, all twelve men had agreed, not guilty for the defendants trial. The question is why would eleven men with the determined thought that the defendant was guilty, change their mind within a few hours and pieces of justified evidence? The final decision stated that the defendant was…“Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty.”(Rose 1957) This quote summarizes the biggest question as to why eleven biased men would change their minds in such a short period …show more content…

When juror number three finally speaks, “not guilty!”(Rose 1957) After realizing his prejudice, all along, it brings attention to the reader, turning their heads, and feeling relief as though the defendant is not guilty. Since juror number ten and juror number three were the most headstrong and argumentative, the moments of their final realization were very important. When the murder weapon is brought into the room, journal number eight contradicts the court's evidence and pulls out a replica of the knife. The evidence is automatically unreasonable. The knife is no longer true evidence of the crime, and they must turn to different evidence. This creates an a-ha moment because throughout the trial, number eight continues to beat the evidence and speak on behalf of the defendant stating as not guilty. And lastly, when all of the evidence leading up to the woman's witnessing comes to a conclusion, it’s proven that the woman could not see without her glasses. Therefore, the defendant was found not guilty as that was their last piece of reasonable evidence to prove the case guilty. The author creates an effective argument and then boom! The reader is taken back after all of the evidence is laid before

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