...very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And no matter where you run into it, prejudice obscures the truth.' “Tjhis phrase sums up the basis of Twelve Angry Men' by Reginald Rose. This play is about a young delinquent on trial for the murder of his abusive father. The jury must find him guilty if there is no reasonable doubt, and in turn, sentence him to death. “I don't envy your job. You are faced with a grave responsibility.” People's bias and predispositions can affect their opinion of different circumstances and different people. This is very evident throughout the play. After the first group vote and juror 8 votes not guilty, a discussion ensues. It is there that the jurors' personal prejudices come out and we the readers/viewers are able to see how this has influenced and shaped what they think. There are many significant views and values that Reginald Rose demonstrates in 12 Angry Men the most important one being that prejudice constantly affects the truth and peoples judgement. As the jurors argue between themselves as to whether a young boy is guilty of stabbing his father it is shown that “It’s very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this.” This is most evident in the way juror #3 and juror #10 come to their decision that the young man is guilty as they bring in there prejudice against young people and people from the slums to make their judgement without considering the facts of the case. Rose uses juror #8 who can see the whole...
Words: 971 - Pages: 4
...Ans 6. “Prejudice always complicated the truth.” The movie 12 Angry Men, by means of several situational examples, reaffirms the fact. The first case in point is of the boy on trial who is born and brought up in slums. Many of the jury members, especially jurors 10, 7, 4 and 3 are heavily influenced by the prejudices they hold against children from the slums. In one of the scenes, juror 10, goes into a rage and explains why people from the slums cannot be trusted and calls them little better than animals who gleefully kill each other off for fun. Juror 4 had earlier pointed out that slums are breeding grounds for criminals and that these slum children are a threat to our society to which 10 adds that they are “real trash”. This is where juror 5 who himself has been born and brought up in slums interrupts and reveals about himself to which others try and convince him that it isn’t about him and that he should not be taking it personally. Juror 11 makes a point at this juncture and empathizes with juror 5 saying that he can understand his sensitivity about the slum issue. It is to be noticed hear that this juror 11 is Hispanic origin and himself had been a victim of such treatment out of held prejudices. One such instance comes in one of the movie scenes as well when juror 7 makes a remark on juror 11 and says “they” are all alike who come running for a life and before you can take a deep breath they get on your head and calls him arrogant. Towards the end juror 10 again makes...
Words: 601 - Pages: 3
...verdict. Consequently, twelve jurors attempt coming to a unanimous decision. Although justice is ultimately secured, prejudice is an evident theme in the play. Twelve Angry Men explores personal prejudice in the justice system by revealing how preconception overwhelms the juror’s ability to see reason, by the jurors presenting opinions rather than evidence and by demonstrating stereotypical qualities which threatens to derail the process. PARA 1: Preconception overwhelms the juror’s ability to see reason. The defendant was at a serious disadvantage and was a victim of prejudice even before the court case. The majority of the jurors were ready to convict the accused, not purely due to the arguments presented by the prosecution but due to the 16 year old being a member of a low societal ranking. Many of the men enter the jury room with preconceived opinions and irrational ideas. For example, the 3rd Juror is against the accused due to an unhealthy relationship with his own son. This is demonstrated when he exclaims ‘I know him. What they’re like. What they do to you. How they kill you every day.’ Therefore the 3rd juror fails provide his arguments to the rest of the jury because his decision is based on emotions. Rose demonstrated the importance of keeping an open-mind rather than of holding pre-formed and generalized opinions. PARA 2: Throughout Twelve Angry Men the jurors continuously present opinions rather than evidence. Many of the jurors are unaware of the full complexity...
Words: 595 - Pages: 3
...12 Angry Men By pacaf123 | Studymode.com 12 Angry Men Mid Term PROC 5840 Directed by: Sidney Lumet Writing credits: Reginald Rose (story and screenplay) Table of Contents Table of Contents2 Cast3 Major Case Issues4 Juror #85 Juror #49 Juror #312 References15 Cast 1957 ActorJuror #Character DescriptionOrder of 'not guilty' vote Martin Balsam1/The ForemanThe jury foreman, somewhat preoccupied with his duties; proves to be accommodating to others. An assistant high school football coach9th John Fiedler2A meek and unpretentious bank clerk who is at first domineered by others but finds his voice as the discussion goes on.5th Lee J. Cobb3A businessman and distraught father, opinionated and stubborn with a temper; the antagonist12th E. G. Marshall4A rational stockbroker, unflappable, self-assured, and analytical11th Jack Klugman 5A young man from a violent slum, a Baltimore Orioles fan3rd Edward Binns6A house painter, tough but principled and respectful6th Jack Warden7A salesman, sports fan, superficial and indifferent to the deliberations7th Henry Fonda8An architect, the first dissenter and protagonist. Identified as "Davis" at the end1st Joseph Sweeney9A wise and observant elderly man. Identified as "McCardle" at the end2nd Ed Begley10A garage owner; a pushy and loudmouthed bigot10th George Voskovec11A European watchmaker and naturalized...
Words: 3647 - Pages: 15
...an excellent example of 1950s social awareness and preparation of the common people in everyday situations. The film is thus a purely naturalistic wonders where all the action happens in real time, except for the film's beginning and end, in one place. Historically, we can look at the film in the context of the year of publication, 1957. USA was at this time in a political transition period. The civil rights movement was already well underway with the judgment of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and the bus boycott in Montgomery in 1956. Many of the film's themes is about racial and social inequalities which characterize this era in American history. The film is critical of society and provokes important social issues in the course of action. Examples are "class differences", "justice", "doubt", "one-to-many" and "the relationship between father and son." Together these stresses, a specific, comprehensive theme through action races, namely the "prejudice". Jury members' prejudices and personal insights against the accused, the trial and to one another is driving both the problem and the resolution of the action. The problem is thus as follows: How are the jury members' judgment influenced by prejudice? Action Report It is late summer in New York. The year is 1957 and a jury of twelve men is about to settle a young boy's future. The boy is charged with murder, and a guilty verdict will send the boy to the electric chair. Almost all jurors seem to have...
Words: 4640 - Pages: 19
...Summary The play is set in a New York City Court of Law jury room in 1957. The play opens to the empty jury room, and the Judge’s voice is heard, giving a set of final instructions to the jurors. We learn that this is a murder case and that, if found guilty, the mandatory sentence for the accused is the death penalty. After these instructions, the jurors enter. The men file in and decide to take a short break before deliberating. They complain that the room is hot and without air-conditioning; even the fan doesn’t work. All the jurors presume the obvious guilt of the defendant, whom we learn has been accused of killing his father. Eventually, the twelve sit down and a vote is taken. All of the jurors vote “guilty,” except for the 8th Juror, who votes “not guilty,” which, due to the requirement of a unanimous jury, forces them to discuss the case. The jurors react violently against this dissenting vote. Ultimately, they decide to go around the table, explaining why they believe the boy to be guilty, in hopes of convincing 8th Juror. Through this discussion we learn the following facts about the case: an old man living beneath the boy and his father testified that he heard upstairs a fight, the boy shouting, “I’m gonna kill you,” a body hitting the ground, and then he saw the boy running down the stairs. The boy claimed he had been at the movies while his father was murdered, but couldn’t remember the name of the movies or who was in them. A woman living across the street...
Words: 2482 - Pages: 10
...with an eighteen year old boy from the ghetto who is on trial for the murder of his abusive father. A jury of twelve men is locked in the deliberation room to decide the fate of the young boy. All evidence is against the boy and a guilty verdict would send him to die in the electric chair. The judge informs the jurors that they are faced with a grave decision and that the court would not entertain any acts of mercy for the boy if found guilty. Even before the deliberation talks begin it is apparent most of the men are certain the boy is guilty. However, when the initial poll is taken Juror #8 (Henry Fonda) registers a shocking not guilty vote. Immediately the room is in uproar. The rest of the jury resents the inconvenient of his decision. After questioning his sanity they hastily decide to humor the juror #8 (Henry Fonda) by agreeing to discuss the trial for one hour. Eventually, as the talks proceed juror #8 slowly undermines their confidence by saying that the murder weapon is widely available to anyone, and that the testimony of the key witness is suspect. Gradually they are won over by his arguments and even the most narrow minded of his fellow jurors hesitantly agrees with him. Their verdict is now a solid not guilty. Arriving at a unanimous not guilty verdict does not come easily. The jury encounters many difficulties in learning to communicate and deal with each other. What seems to be a decisive guilty verdict as deliberations begin slowly becomes a questionable...
Words: 1316 - Pages: 6
...personality profile of each member and discuss its impact on their respective behavior/stand taken. Ans. 1) The story revolves around twelve male members of a jury who have gathered together in room to deliberate on charges of murder against a young boy accused of killing his father. The case against the boy looks irrefutable and indomitable. All the jury members, except one – Juror 8, are convinced that the boy is guilty of the crime. Juror 8 is not completely convinced about the case and he starts the deliberations, in which all the members have to participate to reach a common conclusion. The main characters are:- Juror 1 | Deepak Kejriwal | Juror 2 | Amitabh Srivastava | Juror 3 | Pankaj Kapur | Juror 4 | S. M. Zaheer | Juror 5 | Subhash Udghate | Juror 6 | Hemant Mishra | Juror 7 | M. K. Raina | Juror 8 | K. K. Raina | Juror 9 | Anu Kapoor | Juror 10 | Subbiraj | Juror 11 | Shailendra Goel | Juror 12 | Aziz Qureshi | The nature of each character is slowly revealed through the process of the discussions which reflect their personal beliefs, convictions, notions, idiosyncrasies, prejudices, and cultural & social backgrounds. In this paper I have tried to determine the personality of each of these characters on the basis of the structure of their personalities or psychological state at work (I used these parameters which were provided in the select readings provided to us by Prof. Bhupen Srivastava). And hence I have distinguished them in the following...
Words: 4210 - Pages: 17
...where there are no shifts in chronology (no breaks in play). - Unity of place: Action occurs in only one single location (the jury room). • Allows the audience to feel very close to characters, their relationships and the conflict and challenges with which they are faced in deciding the defendant’s fate. • Intensifies sense of realism and is particularly effective because of the claustrophobic nature of the setting. Language • Rose’s characters use naturalistic, everyday language appropriate to the times and for the audience. • Heightened poetic or symbolic language is rarely used, instead speaking in concrete terms about the details at hand. • They are generally differentiated by the content of their speech rather than style. For example, 8th sometimes pauses while he speaks, demonstrating his calm, reasoned nature as well as the fact that he is uncertain about the case. Conversely, 3rd’s speeches are often punctuated with exclamation marks and he frequently interrupts other characters, demonstrating his...
Words: 8042 - Pages: 33
...play is about twelve jurors who are to decide the verdict of a 19 year old boy who is accused of killing his father. The jurors go into a room with the foreman to talk about the case and decide on a verdict. The vote has to be unanimous either guilty or not guilty for the case to end. To start the deciding, the jurors decide to take a preliminary vote to see where they stand. After counting the ballots the vote is 11 to 1, guilty. Juror number eight is the one who votes not guilty. The reason that juror eight voted not guilty was because he was not sure that the boy was guilty and he wanted to talk about it. One of the jurors decided to take a minute for each juror to tell their side of the story and what they personally think about the case. After a lot of main points were made such as there being two of the identical knives, the woman in her apartment saying she saw the murder take place through the window of the El train, and how the old man said that he heard the boy say that he was going to kill his father and then went to his door to see the boy run down the stairs. After all of this has taken place they decide to take another vote. The verdict is still 11 to 1 in the favor of guilty. Juror eight is now going over the time periods of when the woman said she saw the murder. Juror eight is also trying to explain how the man could not have seen the boy run down the stairs because the old man would not have had enough time to get out of bed. After juror eight makes all of his...
Words: 2037 - Pages: 9
...(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2009 1 Syllabus NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus SKILLING v. UNITED STATES CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT No. 08–1394. Argued March 1, 2010—Decided June 24, 2010 Founded in 1985, Enron Corporation grew from its headquarters in Houston, Texas, into the seventh highest-revenue-grossing company in America. Petitioner Jeffrey Skilling, a longtime Enron officer, was Enron’s chief executive officer from February until August 2001, when he resigned. Less than four months later, Enron crashed into bankruptcy, and its stock plummeted in value. After an investigation uncovered an elaborate conspiracy to prop up Enron’s stock prices by overstating the company’s financial well-being, the Government prosecuted dozens of Enron employees who participated in the scheme. In time, the Government worked its way up the chain of command, indicting Skilling and two other top Enron executives. These three defendants, the indictment charged, engaged in a scheme to deceive investors about Enron’s true financial performance by...
Words: 40397 - Pages: 162
...into the case. Having a jury like in the “12 Angry Men” is not having a fair jury or trial what so ever, they are either going to all agree with each other, persuade one another or think like each other. One of the characters played by Henry Fonda goes against the grain, and votes not guilty. This really sends the other jurors up the wall, more particularly the head strong jurors. They want nothing to do with him and don’t want to listen to what he has to say. Henry Fonda speaks out and votes the opposite of all the other jurors. He does so because he wants to discuss the facts and the evidence, he isn’t convinced he is guilty or he is innocent. Fonda wants to do so because he does not want to but a boy to his death without discussing this matter into more depth. This is the boy’s life they have in the palm of their hands after all, and he couldn’t live with the guilt if he would have been peer pressured to vote the same as the other 11 men. Fonda wants the other jurors to realize that because all the jurors were just quick voting the boy as guilty without deeply discussing what was a hand. As the deliberations unfold, the story quickly becomes a study of the jurors’ complex personalities, which range from wise, bright and empathetic to arrogant, prejudiced and merciless. Along with...
Words: 1022 - Pages: 5
...NTRODUCTION "Of course you know we've got a first degree murder charge here, and if we vote the accusedguilty, we've got to send him to the chair" stated Juror #1, the foreman of the group beforetheir first vote. 12 Angry Men tells the story of a jury made up of twelve men as they discussthe guilt or innocence of a defendant, referred to as the boy, on the basis of reasonabledoubt. The film explores many negotiation techniques, and the difficulties encountered in amulti-party negotiation process where the common goal is to try to reach a unanimousconclusion. The paper will cover the range of bargaining and negotiation styles used among thegroup of men whose personalities add to the intensity of the conflict. This paper will skillfullyfollow the influence weapons and negotiation fouls of each Juror one by one as the negotiationflows from nearly a unanimous guilty verdict to an absolutely unanimous non-guilty verdict. Juror #1Either through volunteering or chronological delegation, juror #1 was the foreman of the groupand tasked with leading the discussion, which quickly turns into a quite interesting negotiation.He was not very assertive, especially when it came to his role of authority, offering to give it upto anyone that would want it. He was however, highly cooperative, making sure the trial wasfair and all the other jurors were heard. Overall he was non-resistant and had anaccommodating negotiation style. His target point was running the trial based on how everyoneelse...
Words: 6837 - Pages: 28
...guilty of the crime and that task before them is to reach a unanimous decision to expedite the case. His is the only "not guilty" in a preliminary vote. His stated reason is that there is too much at stake for him to go along with the verdict without at least talking about it first. His vote annoys several of the others, the most vociferous of whom is Juror number 7 who has tickets for the evening's movie show. The film then revolves around the jury's difficulty in reaching a unanimous verdict, mainly due to several of the jurors' personal prejudices. Juror number 8 says that the evidence presented is circumstantial, and the boy deserves a careful consideration—whereupon he questions the accuracy and reliability of the only two witnesses to the murder, the fact that the knife used in the murder is not as unusual as testimony promotes (to prove his point, he produces an identical one from his pocket), and the overall questionable circumstances (the fact that a train was passing by at the time of the crime calls the two witnesses' testimonies into doubt). Having argued several points and gotten no favourable response from other jurors, he reluctantly agrees that all he seems to be accomplishing is hanging the jury. He takes a bold gamble: he requests another vote, this time by secret ballot. He proposes that he...
Words: 3872 - Pages: 16
...vote, beyond a reasonable doubt, was a difficult task for the jurors represented in the film, 12 Angry Men. All but one were convinced the boy on trial was guilty of first degree murder based on eye witness testimony and circumstantial evidence. Uncomfortably hot and sweaty, one intent on getting to a ball game, eleven of the twelve jurors had no intention to stop and think about the life contingent on their verdict. The entire story was motivated by the reasonable doubt, communication competence, and persuasion of one man. Had they not discussed the evidence in further detail and investigated potential explanations, the boy would have been executed. The purpose of the group was to determine guilt or innocence across the board. Just as the jurors did not know the defendant, they did not know each other. No juror shared his name and the men were only identified by juror number. The lack of trust, combined with various backgrounds and beliefs, created communication barriers between the jurors. Yelling, side conversation, walking away, preexisting bias, game playing, doodling and unbearable heat are all examples of the communication barriers the jurors were challenged to overcome throughout the film. The relationship between the jurors was complex and appeared to only be important in the short-term. They were forced to communicate with each other for the duration of the deliberation. As the conversation advanced, the jurors unintentionally gained insight to their own empathy and behavior...
Words: 782 - Pages: 4
