12 Angry Men Literary Analysis Essay

Imagine yourself, sitting below a judge and a group of people who are complete strangers to you, whose opinions on you could decide your fate. Imagine if you lived or died, depending on 12 votes. Imagine these people's decisions about your fate, relied heavily on your race before you even spoke a word. This describes “12 Angry Men” by Reginald Rose. In the play “12 Angry men” by Reginald Rose, one characteristic a juror should have is an open perspective. This play is about how 12 Jurors are in a room, discussing if a defendant who allegedly committed premeditated homicide on his father is guilty or not. Throughout the play, the good characteristics of jurors are shown via many factors. Some of these factors are showing empathy, combating biases, and accepting facts from different sides of the argument. All in all, “12 Angry men” by Reginald Rose conveys that one key characteristic a juror should have is being open-minded. 

When jurors were able to empathize with the defendant from the get-go, they were able to prove his innocence when he might have originally thought otherwise. For example, on page 15, as the Jurors started discussing if the defendant was guilty or not, Juror 8 said, “There were eleven votes for guilty-it's not so easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.” Almost every Juror thought it was an open and shut case; the defendant was guilty, although they barely looked into the case. Juror 8 considered that there is a possibility for innocence. This caused deeper investigation, which led to the defendant being acquitted. The fact that Juror 8 was able to look further into the case by empathizing, changing the opinion of the jury, illustrates he has good characteristics. Another example is on page 49, when the jury was arguing about the reliability of the old man's testimony when Juror 4 said, “And what if the old man was wrong about the time it took him to get to the door but right about whom he saw? Please remember that there weren't any fingerprints on the knife, and it is summer, so gloves seem unlikely.” When Juror 4 is using what-if statements it's showing he has an open mind. Juror 4 at this time was very passionate that the defendant is guilty. The fact that in part of his argument he is using facts that support the defendant's innocence as well, conveys that empathy is a characteristic of a good juror. 

Another reason 12 Angry Men proves an open perspective is a characteristic every juror should have is that some jurors combated the racism of jurors ten and three. For example, on page 14, Juror 3 was talking about that since the defendant was Latino, it adds to his guilt. In response to this Juror 8 says, “What does a guilty man look like? He is not guilty until we say he is guilty. Are we to vote on his face?” When Juror 3 says “Are we to vote on his face”, he is directly challenging juror 3’s racism. Juror 3’s racism caused him to be farsighted in terms of circumstantial evidence. Eight makes him dig deeper past his racism, and in the end, it works out. Since eight made three looks past his biases, he is an effective juror. Another example is on page 59 when Juror 10 is being blatantly racist and says, “Nobody's blaming them. That's how they are. You know what I mean? Violent!” And in response, “[NINE gets up and goes to window and looks out. He is followed by ELEVEN.]” When juror’s 9 and 11 turn their back to 10 it shows their disapproval of what he is saying and how they won’t allow his racism in the jury room. In the coming sentences, you can observe almost every juror turn their back to 10. By standing their ground and not allowing him to say these things, it creates a better argument and more opportunity to dig deeper into the case. This methodology showed great results. Only a couple of pages later, a verdict was decided that could have only happened if some Jurors stopped the racism of others.

The final reason that having an open perspective is a good characteristic for a juror is when Jurors can agree with each other about facts that don't necessarily help their argument, the debate runs smoother. One example of this is on page 22 when the jury was discussing the overview of the case and the defendant's lawyer when Juror 4 says, “While it doesn't change my opinion about the guilt of the kid, still, I agree with you that the defense counsel was bad.” Here, Juror 4 supported that the defense attorney was bad which supported the argument that he was against at the time. He said it regardless even though he knew it didn't support him. This made the argument run smoother and caused new connections to be made. Another example of this is on page 57, when the jury is talking about the defendant's intelligence and knife skills and Juror 8 says, “This is a kid who has gone to the reform school for knife fighting. The night of the murder he bought a knife, a switch knife. It would then take a very stupid kid to go and murder a man, his father, with an instrument that everyone would associate with the kid.” And Juror 3 responds and says, “I quite agree, he's dumb.” Here 3 is accepting that the kid is dumb which doesn’t support his argument. If he was so dumb why would he think to wipe the fingerprints. Especially since juror 3 is so aggressive, his agreement with the opposing side caused the argument to be to a much higher degree of quality. This was complete fairness on 3’s side.

12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose proves that a trait a juror should have is having an open mind. There are multiple methods to this. One of them is empathy. Another is combating unfair biases. The final one is accepting facts that don't support your thoughts. Citizens going on jury duty all around the USA should take this characteristic when constructing their own arguments.  How would you construct your thoughts in a jury when someone's life depended on it?