Comparing and Contrasting Juror 3 and Juror 8 from Twelve Angry Men

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In the play “Twelve Angry men”, the story line presents a variety of perspectives and opinions between twelve very different men. Some are more likely to be pointed out as prejudice, and others are more focused on reaching fair justice. Clearly, it is quite difficult for different people to vote ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’ in unity when coming to a fair decision. In all of the twelve jurors, I have chosen Juror 3 and Juror 8 for contrast and comparison. I believe that Juror number 3 is a very opinionated man, with more differences than similarities comparing with Juror number 8. These two jurors are almost the plain opposite of each other. Juror 3 appears to be a very intolerant man accustomed of forcing his wishes and views upon others. On the other hand, Juror 8 is an honest man who keeps an open mind for both evidence and reasonable doubt. Since these two people are indeed very different, they both have singular thoughts relating to the murder case. Juror 8 is a man who is loyal to justice. In the beginning of the play, he was the only one to vote ‘not guilty’ the first time the twelve men called a vote. Although his personality is reflected on being a quiet, thoughtful, gentle man, he is still a very persistent person who will fight for justice to be done. Juror 8 is a convincing man who presents his arguments well, but can also be seen as manipulative. An example would be when he kept provoking Juror 3 until he finally said “I’m going to kill you" to Juror 8. He did this because he wanted to prove that saying "I’ll kill you" doesn’t necessarily mean that Juror 3 was actually going to kill him. Juror 3 is a totally different character. He is a stubborn man who can be detected with a streak of sad... ... middle of paper ... ...ted by peer pressure. At the end of the play, after all the other jurors joined up with Juror 8, Juror 3 was the only one who still voted ‘guilty’. This time, Juror 3’s perseverance collapsed and he finally voted on ‘not guilty’. Juror 3 is obviously not as brave as Juror 8 as to stand up for his singular thought on the crime. A reason for this might be because he doesn’t have the intelligence to use good arguments to prove his stance. I believe that both characters showed interesting standpoints for the audience to recognize and maybe even understand. Juror 3 and 8 were definitely the two most conflicting characters; they created a lot of tension within the play. I find that the play “Twelve Angry men” really brought truth to the saying “justice is blind”; prejudice simply cannot interfere with the truth, neither can it restrict reasonable doubt.

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