12 Angry Men: Flaw Of The Judicial System

The American courtroom drama teleplay ’12 Angry Men’ by Reginald Rose is a classic and highlights the flaws of the judicial system. Published in 1954, the play is set in a jury room in New York. It focuses on the 12 members of the jury having to deliberate and try reach a unanimous decision that will determine the defendant’s fate. This essay will argue that Reginald Roses’ play will continue to be relevant due to its similarity of flaws and imperfections in the judicial system, which will be shown on various levels, and how in today’s society we still encounter these issues. This is displayed through the deliberate construction of character relationships and enduring themes of prejudice.

The deliberately constructed character relationships undoubtably establish that

certain jurors can be unreliable. In the play there are continuous disagreements and major conflicts between the 12 members of the jury. The main two characters who don't see eye to eye in the play are Juror 3 and Juror 8. Juror 3 is described as extremely opinionated and demanding, whereas Juror 8 is a gentle, kind man who wants justice to be done. These two characters naturally develop controversy in the room and build up the tension. This is clearly seen through an example when Juror 8 calls Juror 3 a sadist. Juror 8 without doubt got offended and reacted to this by dangerously lunging towards him but he was immediantely stopped by two jurors. This attempt at physically hurting Juror 3 definitely exposed his anger. Rose uses stage directions to strongly indicate that Juror 3 has pure hatred towards Juror 8 as his hot-tempered behaviour certifies it. Additionally, Reginald Rose uses symbols to showcase tension within the characters. The tension is built from the small room as it gradually becomes hotter, which causes Juror 3 to get tense. The evolving tension and suspense adds physical discomfort to all the jurors. The audience is positioned to view Juror 8 and Juror 3’s relationship as rivalry as they both try to persuade the other jurors that they are right. Juror 8 is positioned to be viewed as the protagonist while Juror 3 is viewed as the antagonist. Therefore, Rose presents flaws of a judicial system and that not all jurors get along through his representations of character relationships.

The plot of 12 angry men explores the key theme of prejudice.

This is shown through individual characters throughout the play. One example is Juror 10 who unmistakably expresses his emotions and feelings negatively towards the defendant’s and other fellow jurors. This can be observed through a quote from Juror 10, “they’re violent, they’re vicious, they’re ignorant and they will cut us up. That’s their intent to cut us up.” Rose uses language features to highlight predjudice as he uses impersonal pronouns such as “they” as a way to downgrade and separate the people who live in slums from himself and society. Rose uses short sentences such as “He’s got to burn!” to clearly reveal Juror 3’s negative emotions. He also shows this by using exclamtion marks to emphasize his point. The audience is positioned to view Juror 10 and Juror 3 as bias because they judge the defendant based off their own experiences and facts. Through these two quotes it is demonstrated that any juror can be prejudice as humans naturally have prejudgments. This proves a point of unreliability of jurors. Therefore, Rose purposefully presents the themes and issues of prejudice throughout his play by using individual

characters.

This essay successfully demonstrated that 12 Angry Men will remain relevant due to its similarity of flaws and imperfections in a courtroom. By closely anaylsing langauge choices, language features, symbols and stage directions used throughout the play, Reginald Rose clearly puts together character relationships, such as Juror 3 and Juror 8 to deliberately show that judicial issues are still common in todays society. The audience can achieve a greater understanding of prejudice through specific character personalities. In todays society you can easily watch a similar scenario by just simply turning on the television to view a court case and you will most likely see similar examples of jurors being prejudiced and biased. Undeniably, the teleplay is still relevant in todays society because of its flaws in a judicial system.