Summary:
Reviews the play, Twelve Angry Men. Provides a plot summary. Discusses the tension between the jurors.
In the beginning of the play Twelve Angry Men Jurors 3 and 8 start off on a bad foot. In the very beginning of the play, the judge is describing the case in which a 19 years old boy supposedly stabs and kills his father with a unique switchblade. When the Jurors go into the Jury Room, they take a vote as to see where each of them stand. All eleven jurors vote guilty, except for Juror 8. All of the Jurors regard Juror 8 with a coldness for keeping them longer than needed. Juror 8 did a little research before the case and bought himself an exact replica of the knife used in the killing, which he presented during the middle of the jury room discussions. This changed the beliefs of a few jurors, since they were relying their thoughts on the knife. During the end of the second act, a few jurors changed their votes to not guilty. Juror number three, four, and ten remained voting guilty. The testimony of the woman who saw the killing through the windows of a passing El train was the only thing their votes laid upon. Once juror 9 explained the way that the lady couldn't possibly have seen the boy, jurors 4 and 10 changed their votes.
Juror 3 was left alone. After a bit of yelling and prodding from all the other jurors, he finally changed his vote after breaking down.
There are many places in this play where the two jurors show tension between each other. Juror 8 is the calm, logical type, while juror 3 is the antagonistic bigot who cares nothing for the people from slums. The very first tension appears when the jury takes a vote the very first time. Juror 3 wants to have this over with and starts yelling at 8 how he should vote yes and why he voted no in the first place. Another time the tension increased a lot were when Juror 8 was starting to convince people that the kid wouldn't yell,"I'm gonna kill you!" at the top of his lungs. Juror 3 disagreed with this and later starting to attack juror 8 yelling "Let me go, I'll kill him, I'll kill him!." Juror 8 calmly responds with, "You don't really mean you are going to kill me, are you"" Another time that Juror 8 and 3 have a conflict is in the very end. When everyone leaves the room, 3 takes the knife and holds it up to juror 8's belly, point facing toward 8, but then after a little while of staring, 3 reverses the knife and hands it to 8, who closes it and walks out after 3. I think juror 3 is a very angry, self centered, selfish man. Hew ill probably see the error of his ways and the things he has been doing wrong in the past hours. It is very sad to think that there are people in this world that have served jury duty and have voted with prejudice against the defendant.
This is the complete article, containing 511 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
