ipl-logo

Stigma In 12 Angry Men

750 Words3 Pages

“I’ll kill him!” (Rose 330). This is our first reactive thought to the man who signs the paper, telling us it is our dreaded time to serve jury duty. This stigma carries over to our perspective in the jury room. Twelve Angry Men is a play written by Reginald Rose in 1957. The play clearly shows a great representation of the problems in the modern day court system. These complications include biased jurors, ignorant and careless jurors, and lazy court-appointed lawyers.
A major problem in the court system is, biased and close minded jurors can often slip through the interview process before the court case. In Twelve Angry Men, Juror Four makes a point that offends Juror Five and shows how judgmentally he thinks; “The children who come out of slum backgrounds are potential menaces to society” (Rose 318). Juror Five takes offense to this because he was successful and born in the slums, and carries on to fight to break the stereotype in the …show more content…

The men go over many of the testimonies in the jury room, acting them out, proving they cannot be true, and arguing the logistics. The boy’s defense lawyer should have made these points clearer to the men. Although, some people would say that the boy should have contacted his own lawyer in if he wanted quality. Because the boy was young, he was probably not able to afford his own lawyer. Either way, I believe the lawyer should have helped him out. Juror Seven asks the men, “Why didn’t his lawyer bring up all these points?” (Rose 327) Even the men in the jury room realized that the boy’s case was not properly presented. Due to this, the lawyer could have taken more time to help the boy’s chance of receiving an innocent verdict. “He hardly seemed interested” (Rose 318). Juror Eight points out that the boy’s defense lawyer hardly tried. The length of the trial could have been shorter if the lawyer was better at convincing the jurors of the boy’s

Show More
Related
726 Words | 3 Pages

When asked why he voted not guilty, juror eight stated “Look, this boy has been kicked around all his life. You know---living in a slum, his mother dead since he was nine. He spent a year in and a half in an orphanage while his father served a jail term for forgery. That’s not a very good head start. He’s had a pretty terrible sixteen years.

Read More
997 Words | 4 Pages

In his play Twelve Angry Men, Reginald Rose brings us back in time to 1957, to a jury room of a New York Court of Law where one man, Juror #8, confronts the rest of the jury to look at a homicide case without prejudice, and ultimately convinces Juror #2, a very soft-spoken man who at first had little say in the deliberation. Throughout the play, many of the jurors give convincing arguments that make one think about whether the boy is “guilty” or “not guilty.” Ultimately, one is convinced by ethos, logos, and pathos. We can see ethos, logos, and pathos having an effect on Juror #2 as he begins as a humble man and changes into someone brave at the end. Although all three modes play a part in convincing Juror #2, pathos was the most influential

Read More
1964 Words | 8 Pages

"Don 't judge a book by its cover" is a famous saying that some of us heard it before and some of us experienced it. 12 jurors were experiencing this quote when they gathered to decide whether a young boy is guilty by killing his father or not. Juror 2 stated, "Well, anyway, I think he was guilty" (6). Juror 2 represent most of us, as sometimes we judge from what we hear and not from what we see. The 12 jurors are from various backgrounds and each one has a distinctive personality.

Read More
681 Words | 3 Pages

Sydney Price Ms. Teeling English I 20 January 2023 The Danger of Detachment in Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men What would you do if you sat in a cramped, sweaty room for hours with all the pressure on you and your fellow jurors to make one decision: the life or death of a young boy? The jurors of Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men face this very predicament, forced to decide on the innocence of a boy on trial for murder.

Read More
747 Words | 3 Pages

People tend to base characteristics of people pretty quickly; likewise, their personalities. Most people base their opinions on stereotypes. Reginald Rose and his play “12 Angry Men” demonstrate how people are quick to judge other people based on looks. In the movie all twelve jurors must decide if a young boy is guilty or innocent. At the beginning of the movie/play-write, only one juror, juror eight, decides the boy is innocent.

Read More
1247 Words | 5 Pages

A juror that was very vulnerable to the pressure was Juror 2. He lacks diction, and seems weak in his beliefs. When the men are asked to share their opinions he says, “Well, it’s hard to put into words. I just-think he’s guilty” (Rose 14). Contrary to the second juror, the third jurors resents being pressured by his peers.

Read More
1186 Words | 5 Pages

8th juror appeals to their sense of pathos and pity by saying “this boy’s been kicked around all his life… He’s had a pretty terrible sixteen years. I think maybe we owe him a few words. That’s all.” While this has nothing to do with the case, he hopes to appeal to their humanity in order to get them to give him a chance in these deliberations.

Read More
1191 Words | 5 Pages

The play 12 Angry Men is about a jury of twelve men that are given the task of deciding the fate, guilty or not guilty, of a young boy accused of murdering his father. The theme of standing up against the majority is very prevalent in this story because of the decisions some of the jurors make throughout the play. Juror 8 makes the decision to vote not guilty, he is the one and only juror in this play that decides to vote not guilty for the boy in the beginning. The other eleven jurors decide to vote guilty because of the evidence that they have been presented with. The act of Juror 8 standing against the majority of the other jurors about the case, voting not guilty, allows the jurors to thoroughly dissect the case, understanding it fully and thoughtfully before making their decision of guilty or not guilty.

Read More
803 Words | 4 Pages

This process continues throughout the course of the movie, and each juror’s biases is slowly revealed. Earlier through the movie, it is already justifiable to label juror 10 as a bigoted racist as he reveals strong racist tendencies against the defendant, stating his only reason for voting guilty is the boy’s ethnicity and background. . Another interesting aspect of this 1957 film is the “reverse prejudice” portrayed by juror

Read More
591 Words | 3 Pages

The justice system that relies on twelve individuals reaching a life-or-death decision has many complications and dangers. The play Twelve Angry Men, by Reiginald Rose, illustrates the dangers of a justice system that relies on twelve people reaching a life-or-death decision because people are biased, they think of a jury system as an inconvenience, and many people aren’t as intelligent as others. The first reason why Reiginald illustrates dangers is because people can be biased or they can stereotype the defendant. The Jurors in Twelve Angry Men relate to this because a few of them were biased and several of them stereotyped the defendant for being from the slums. The defendant in this play was a 19 year old kid from the slums.

Read More
488 Words | 2 Pages

Twelve Angry Men “A person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.” In the play, Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, a nineteen years old is on trial for the murder of his father. After many pieces of evidence were presented, the three that are weak include the one of a kind knife, the old men who heard the words “I’m going to kill you!” and the woman who is in question because of her glasses. Based on these, the boy is not guilty.

Read More
814 Words | 4 Pages

‘Twelve Angry Men’ written by Reginald Rose, is based on the story of a jury who have to come together to determine the fate of a young boy accused to have murdered his own father. Initially, eleven of the jurors vote not guilty with one of the juror being uncertain of the evidence put before them. As the men argue over the different pieces of evidence, the insanity begins to make sense and the decision becomes clearer as they vote several other times. Rose creates drama and tension in the jury room, clearly exploring through the many issues of prejudice, integrity and compassion, in gaining true justice towards the accused victim. These aspects have been revealed through three character who are Juror 10, Juror 8 and Juror 3.

Read More
915 Words | 4 Pages

People act upon what they think. Within “12 Angry Men”, all of the jurors have an opinion but some voice their more than others. One juror in particular, Juror Ten, voices his opinion about the boy in question. Repeatedly throughout the play, Juror Ten makes many thoughtless and hurtful comments about a certain kind of people. It is clear that Juror Ten’s uncompromising belief that the accused is guilty is because of his dislike for the boy’s race.

Read More
1404 Words | 6 Pages

The script introduces the viewers to the typical behavior and the state of mind of these jurors, who surprisingly turn out to be the last to change their opinions from “guilty” to “not guilty”. Juror#3 the frustrated father whose personal conflicts and experiences influence his view of the accused’s crime is very desperate to make it clear that his mind is already made up before the deliberations even start. Similar

Read More
858 Words | 4 Pages

The boy should deserve a careful discussion from jurors before face the result of the trial and he emphases that there were only two people who saw the whole process of the murder stabbing the boy’s dad Juror 8 questioned the weapon which claim to kill father, which is a normal switchblade that even juror 8 owns one himself Juror 8 told other jurors to revote, and if this time 11 jurors still think that the boy is guilty, then he will go with them and say that the boy is guilty too One person voted “Not Guilty” at the second

Read More

More about Stigma In 12 Angry Men

Related Topics

Open Document