Twelve Angry Men
"Twelve Angry Men," a play originally by Reginald Rose, later adapted to film by Sidney Lumet, is a story not only about the outcome of a trial for a Puerto Rican youth charged for his father's murder, but also about human nature and how the certain attitudes and beliefs of the jurors lead to the eventual acquittal of the case. Each juror may be categorized into a general group that shares his initial ideas: the passives (jurors 1, 2, 5, and 9), the stubborn passives (jurors 6 and 12), the aggressors (jurors 3, 10 and to a lesser extent 7), the factualists (jurors 4 and 11), and the loner (juror 8). The passives side with a guilty verdict in the beginning because they do not want to be the ones to cause trouble. The stubborn passives are similar, only they do not change their vote until the majority has done so. The aggressors act upon their guilty verdict because of some outside factor that influences their choice. The factualists chose at first a guilty verdict because, theoretically, certain pieces of evidence seemed undeniable. The loner, number 8, chooses a not guilty verdict because he has a doubt in his mind, and feels a moral obligation to talk before sentencing a man to death. The group influences affecting the j
Other influences affecting the jurors include prejudices and stereotypes. Prejudice is an unjustifiable and usually negative attitude towards a group and its members, involving stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action. Similarly, stereotypes are a generalized, often over generalized, belief about a group of people. The basis for the aggressors arguments stem from a prejudice based on a stereotype. For example, juror 3 stereotypes all children as being destructive to their fathers, like his was to him. Also, juror 10 stereotypes all foreigners as being second class citizens and Puerto Ricans in particular as being violent and barbaric. Even juror 4 has a stereotype as to the kind of people who come out of slums who he considers of a poor caliber. However, mostly jurors 3 and 10 seem unable to stay unbiased. Even juror 8 admits "It's very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this... no matter where you run into it, prejudice obscures the truth." Eventually, both jurors are defeated because they must come to terms with the root of their prejudice and the undeniable doubt left by the evidence. urors include the ideas of groupthink and minority influence. Groupthink is the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. This concept is what first drives all groups but the loner to vote for a guilty verdict. Though all members have their own reasons for voting this way, truly, the desire for a quick and painless session overrides their desire
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1080
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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